He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs, for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dread shall we be rewarded by that dazzling unforeseen wing-footed wanderer.
The desire that is satisfied is not a great desire, nor has the shoulder used all its might that an unbreakable gate has never strained.
We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity.
There are a few of the open-air spirits; the more domestic of their tribe gather within-doors, plentiful as swallows under southern eaves.
It is love that I am seeking for, But of a beautiful, unheard-of kind That is not in the world.
It is not permitted to a man, who takes up pen or chisel, to seek originality, for passion is his only business, and he cannot but mould or sing after a new fashion because no disaster is like another.
The poor have very few hours in which to enjoy themselves; they must take their pleasure raw; they haven’t the time to cook it.
Only the dead can be forgiven; But when I think of that my tongue’s a stone.
The house ghost is usually a harmless and well-meaning creature. It is put up with as long as possible. It brings good luck to those who live with it.
What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?
All art is in the last analysis an endeavor to condense as out of the flying vapor of the world an image of human perfection, and for its own and not for the art’s sake.
What can I but enumerate old themes?
We only believe in those thoughts which have been conceived not in the brain but in the whole body.
Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truth, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned.
In the great cities we see so little of the world, we drift into our minority. In the little towns and villages there are no minorities; people are not numerous enough. You must see the world there, perforce. Every man is himself a class.
Everything that man esteems Endures a moment or a day. Love’s pleasure drives his love away, The painter’s brush consumes his dreams.
Though leaves are many, the root is one; Through all the lying days of my youth I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun Now I may wither into the truth.
Does the imagination dwell the most Upon a woman won or a woman lost?
We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create.
O but we dreamed to mend Whatever mischief seemed To afflict mankind, but now That winds of winter blow Learn that we were crack-pated when we dreamed.