You could not be born at a better period than the present, when we have lost everything.

It is impossible that the whole of truth should not be present at every time and every place, available for anyone who desires it.

Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes.

I think that it is useless to fight directly against natural weaknesses. One has to force oneself to act as though one did not have them in circumstances where a duty makes it imperative; and in the ordinary course of life one has to know these weaknesses, prudently take them into account, and strive to turn them to good purpose; for they are all capable of being put to some good purpose.

Workers need poetry more than bread. They need that their life should be a poem. They need some light from eternity. Religion alone can be the source of such poetry.

The joy of learning is as indispensable in study as breathing is in running. Where it is lacking there are no real students, but only poor caricatures of apprentices who, at the end of their apprenticeship, will not even have a trade.