An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are.
Depression is rage spread thin.
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
The mass of mankind is divided into two classes, the Sancho Panza’s who have a sense for reality, but no ideals, and the Don Quixote’s with a sense for ideals, but mad.
Habit is stronger than reason.
I like to walk about among the beautiful things that adorn the world; but private wealth I should decline, or any sort of personal possessions, because they would take away my liberty.
The effort of art is to keep what is interesting in existence, to recreate it in the eternal.
Old places and old persons in their turn, when spirit dwells in them, have an intrinsic vitality of which youth is incapable, precisely, the balance and wisdom that come from long perspectives and broad foundations.
I have imagination, and nothing that is real is alien to me.
Artists have no less talents than ever, their taste, their vision, their sentiment are often interesting; they are mighty in their independence and feeble only in their works.
Repetition is the only form of permanence that Nature can achieve.
The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate; they are green and vigorous in old age.
It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.
It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.
History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren’t there.
The muffled syllables that Nature speaks Fill us with deeper longing for her word; She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks, She makes a sweeter music than is heard.