I laugh at my heart, and do its will

It is with art as with love: How can a man of the world,with all his distractions, keep the inwardness which an artist must possess if he hopes to attain perfection? That inwardness which the spectator must share if he is to understand the work as the artist wishes and hopes... Believe me, talents are like virtues; either you must love them for their own sake or renounce them altogether. And they are only recognized and rewarded when we have practised them in secret, like a dangerous mystery."

One usually thinks people to be more dangerous than they are.

Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.

Translators can be considered as busy matchmakers who praise as extremely desirable a half-veiled beauty. They arouse an irresistible yearning for the original.

If you live criticizing people, you won't have time to love them.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.