Take hope from the heart of man, and you make him a beast of prey.

The loss of our illusions is the only loss from which we never recover.

Music is not a science any more than poetry is. It is a sublime instinct, like genius of all kinds.

Christianity has ever been the enemy of human love.

Flowers belong to Fairyland: the flowers and the birds and the butterflies are all that the world has kept of its golden age--the only perfectly beautiful things on earth--joyous, innocent, half divine--useless, say they who are wiser than God.

Humiliation is a guest that only comes to those who have made ready his resting-place, and will give him a fair welcome. ... no one can disgrace you save yourself.

Men are always optimists when they look inwards, and pessimists when they look round them.