Superstition is a part of the very being of humanity; and when we fancy that we are banishing it altogether, it takes refuge in the strangest nooks and corners, and then suddenly comes forth again, as soon as it believes itself at all safe.
Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.
It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place.
To venture an opinion is like moving a piece at chess: it may be taken, but it forms the beginning of a game that is won.
I come more and more to the conclusion that one must take the side of the minority which is always the more intelligent one.
He who is wise puts aside all claims which may dissipate his attention, and confining himself to one branch excels in that.
Deny yourself! You must deny yourself! That is the song that never ends.
All our knowledge is symbolic.
We can stand only a certain amount of unhappiness; anything beyond that annihilates us or passes us by, leaving us apathethetic.
The world only goes forward because of those who oppose it.
The thinking person has the strange characteristic to like to create a fantasy in the place of the unsolved problem, a fantasy that stays with the person even when the problem has been solved and truth made its appearance.
The true, prescriptive artist strives after artistic truth; the lawless artist, following blind instinct, after an appearance of naturalness. The one leads to the highest peaks of art, the other to its lowest depths.
All perishable is but an allegory.
America, you have it better than our continent, the old one.
An actor should take lessons from a painter and a sculptor.
The older we grow, the greater become the ordeals.
Old age is never honored among us, but only indulged, as childhood is; and old men lose one of the most precious rights of man, – that of being judged by their peers.
Were not the eye made to receive the rays of the sun, it could not behold the sun; if the peculiar power of God lay not in us, how could the godlike charm us?
Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.
Art is based on a strong sentiment of religion, – on a profound and mighty earnestness; hence it is so prone to co-operate with religion.