Those works whose ideal has not as much living reality and, as it were, personality as the beloved one or a friend had better remain unwritten. They would at least never become works of art.

An artist is he who has his center within himself. He who lacks this must choose a particular leader and mediator outside of himself, not forever, however, but only at first. For man cannot exist without a living center, and if he does not have it within himself, he may seek it only in a human being. Only a human being and his center can stimulate and awaken that of another.

One of the two is almost always a prevailing tendency of every author: either not to say some things which certainly should be said, or to say many things which did not need to be said. The first is the original sin of synthetic natures, the latter of analytical natures.

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.

The highest good and solely useful is liberal education.