In general, one must have value oneself in order freely and willingly to acknowledge value in another. This is the basis for the requirement that modesty accompany all merits, as well as the disproportionately loud praise for this virtue which alone, among all its sisters, is always added to the praise of anyone distinguished in some way by the person who dares to praise him, so as to conciliate the worthless and silence their wrath. For what is modesty if not false humility which someone with merits and advantages in a world teeming with perfidious envy uses to beg the pardon of those who have none? Someone who does not lay claim to merit because he in fact has none is being honest, not modest. The World As Will and Representation

“Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, / And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire, / Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves, / So late emerged from, shall so soon expire.” Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better. Autumn Leaves

“The role of the artist is to ask questions, not answer them.” Seagull