We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs forever, but in the august light of abiding memories.

The revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard absolute optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and anger from which a philosophical mind should be free.

If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything .

Any work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

I saw him open his mouth wide. . . as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him.

We owe much to the fruitful meditation of our sages, but a sane view of life is, after all, elaborated mainly in the kitchen.

Things and men have always a certain sense, a certain side by which they must be got hold of if one wants to obtain a solid grasp and a perfect command.