Quotes

Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life.

He only is anxious about the future, to whom the present is unprofitable.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

Fire tries gold, misery tries brave men.

I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back.

The idea of beauty is the fundamental idea of everything. In the world we see only distortions of the fundamental idea, but art, by imagination, may lift itself to the height of this idea. Art is therefore akin to creation.

Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.

Real art, like the wife of an affectionate husband, needs no ornaments. But counterfeit art, like a prostitute, must always be decked out. The cause of production of real art is the artist's inner need to express a feeling that has accumulated, just as for a mother the cause of sexual conception is love. The cause of counterfeit art, as of prostitution, is gain. The consequence of true art is the introduction of a new feeling into the intercourse of life, as the consequence of a wife's love is the birth of a new man into life. The consequences of counterfeit art are the perversion of man, pleasure which never satisfies, and the weakening of man's spiritual strength.

Great works of art are only great because they are accessible and comprehensible to everyone.

Art lifts man from his personal life into the universal life.

Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

Individuality is, to the rational man, the same that breath, the circulation of blood, is to the animal.

Kings are the slaves of history.

In the best, the friendliest and simplest relations flattery or praise is necessary, just as grease is necessary to keep wheels turning.

Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God.

The strongest of all warriors are these two -- Time and Patience.

In historical events great men—so-called—are but labels serving to give a name to the event, and like labels they have the least possible connection with the event itself. Every action of theirs, that seems to them an act of their own free will, is in an historical sense not free at all, but in bondage to the whole course of previous history, and predestined from all eternity.

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second.

Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.

Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.