Happy the hare at morning, for she cannot read The hunter's waking thoughts.

Man is a history-making creature, who can neither repeat his past, nor leave it behind.

The critical opinions of a writer should always be taken with a large grain of salt. For the most part, they are manifestations of his debate with himself as to what he should do next and what he should avoid.

Let all your thinks be thanks.

Drama is based on the Mistake.

If music in general is an imitation of history, opera in particular is an imitation of human willfulness; it is rooted in the fact that we not only have feelings but insist upon having them at whatever cost to ourselves. The quality common to all the great operatic roles, e.g., Don Giovanni, Norma, Lucia, Tristan, Isolde, Br?nnhilde, is that each of them is a passionate and willful state of being. In real life they would all be bores, even Don Giovanni.

History is, strictly speaking, the study of questions; the study of answers belongs to anthropology and sociology.