ch ado about the transitory nature of all things
and are lost in the contemplation of earthly vanity: are we not here to
make the transitory permanent? This we can do only if we know how to
value both.

A rainbow which lasts a quarter of an hour is looked at no more.

Faith is private capital, kept in one's own house. There are public
savings-banks and loan-offices, which supply individuals in their day of
need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself.

During a prolonged study of the lives of various men both great and
small, I came upon this thought: In the web of the world the one may
well be regarded as the warp, the other as the woof. It is the little
men, after all, who give breadth to the web, and the great men firmness
and solidity; perhaps, also, the addition of some sort of pattern. But
the scissors of the Fates determine its length, and to that all the rest
must join in submitting itself.

Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes
that we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.

The really foolish thing in men who are otherwise intelligent is that
they fail to understand what another person says, when he does not
exactly hit upon the right way of saying it.

One need only grow old to become gentler in one's judgments. I see no
fault committed which I could not have committed myself.

Why should those who are happy expect one who is miserable to die before
them in a graceful attitude, like the gladiator before the Roman mob?

By force of habit we look at a clock that has run down as if it were
still going, and we gaze at the face of a beauty as though she still
loved.

Dilettantism treated seriously, and knowledge pursued mechanically, end
by becoming pedantry.

No one but the master can promote the cause of Art. Patrons help the
master--that is right and proper; but that does not always mean that Art
is helped.

The most foolish of all errors is for clever young men to believe that
they forfeit their originality in recognizing a truth which has already
been recognized by others.

It is much easier to recognize error than to find truth; for error lies
on the surface and may be overcome; but truth lies in the depths, and to
search for it is not given to every one.

No one should desire to live in irregular circumstances; but if by
chance a man falls into them, they test his character and show of how
much determination he is