Too much improvisation leaves the mind stupidly void.

The ideal and the beautiful are identical; the ideal corresponds to the idea, and beauty to form; hence idea and substance are cognate.

Those who every morning plan the transactions of the day and follow out that plan carry a thread that will guide them through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of their time is like a ray of light which darts itself through all their occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidents, chaos will soon reign.

You preserve your shame but you kill your glory.

The hatred of luxury is not an intelligent hatred. It implies a hatred of arts.

Liberation is not deliverance.

To contemplate is to look at shadows.