What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.

It is not obligatory for a generation to have great men.

The good is, like nature, an immense landscape in which man advances through centuries of exploration.

The trend towards pure art betrays not arrogance, as is often thought, but modesty. Art that has rid itself of human pathos is a thing without consequence.

An 'unemployed' existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.

The essence of man is, discontent, divine discontent; a sort of love without a beloved, the ache we feel in a member we no longer have.

What makes a nation great is not primarily its great men, but the stature of its innumerable mediocre ones.