A brave man hazards life, but not his conscience.
Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.
The first great law is to obey.
Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven's adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood.
No doubt the artist is the child of his time; but woe to him if he is also its disciple, or even its favorite.
I am better than my reputation
Think with awe on the slow and quiet power of time.
A noble soul spreads even over a face in which the architectonic beauty is wanting an irresistible grace, and a often even triumphs over the natural disfavor.
One can give advice comfortably from a safe port.
His saying was: live and let live.
Life is earnest, art is gay.
Accursed be he who plays with the devil.
Man is created free, and is free, even though born in chains.
Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.
As soon as I have begun to fear I have ceased to fear.
The very plants turn with a joyful transport to the light.
Courage, ne'er by sorrow broken! Aid where tears of virtue flow; Faith to keep each promise spoken! Truth alike to friend and foe!
To gain a crown by fighting is great, to reject it divine.
The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.
Joy, thou spark from Heav'n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are.
But how is the artist to protect himself against the corruption of the age which besets him on all sides?
History, insofar as it accustoms human beings to comprehend the whole of the past and to hasten forward with its conclusions into the far future, conceals the boundaries of birth and death, which enclose the life of the human being so narrowly and oppressively, and with a kind of optical illusion, expands his short existence into endless space, leading the individual imperceptibly over into humanity.
Virtue has her heroes too As well as Fame and Fortune.
Utility is the great idol of the age, to which all powers must do service and all talents swear allegiance. In this great balance of utility, the spiritual service of art has no weight, and, deprived of all encouragement, it vanishes from the noisy Vanity Fair of our time.
You worthy critics, or whatever you may call yourselves, are ashamed or afraid of the momentary and passing madness which is found in all real creators, the longer or shorter duration of which distinguishes the thinking artist from the dreamer. Hence your complaints of unfruitfulness, for you reject too soon and discriminate too severely.
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