The Greatest Happiness For The Thinking Person

A Wounded Heart Can With Difficulty Be Cured. [ger., Doch Ein Gekranktes Herz Erholt Sich Schwer.]

Talent Is Nurtured In Solitude; Character Is Formed In The Stormy Billows Of The World.

Nature! We Live In Her Midst And Know Her Not. She Is Incessantly Speaking To Us, But Betrays Not Her Secret. We Constantly Act Upon Her, And Yet Have No Power Over Her. Variant: Nature! We Are Surrounded And Embraced By Her: Powerless To Separate Ourselves From Her, And Powerless To Penetrate Beyond Her.

People Have A Peculiar Pleasure In Making Converts, That Is, In Causing Others To Enjoy What They Enjoy, Thus Finding Their Own Likeness Represented And Reflected Back To Them.

It Is With Art As With Love: How Can A Man Of The World,with All His Distractions, Keep The Inwardness Which An Artist Must Possess If He Hopes To Attain Perfection? That Inwardness Which The Spectator Must Share If He Is To Understand The Work As The Artist Wishes And Hopes... Believe Me, Talents Are Like Virtues; Either You Must Love Them For Their Own Sake Or Renounce Them Altogether. And They Are Only Recognized And Rewarded When We Have Practised Them In Secret, Like A Dangerous Mystery."