"The pleasure we derive from the representation of the present is due, not only to the beauty it can be clothed in, but also to its essential quality of being the present."

"To say the word Romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts."

"It would be difficult for me not to conclude that the most perfect type of masculine beauty is Satan, as portrayed by Milton."

"I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws."

"The true measure of a man is the silence between the notes creates the music."

"He who possesses art and science has religion he who does not possess them, needs religion."

"There is no Frigate like a book to take us lands away nor any coursers like a page of prancing Poetry."

"Wisdom is the quiet art of recognizing what can be changed and releasing what cannot. In this truth lies the bedrock of all virtue — an essential principle for the reflective life."