“Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.”

“Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with beauty.”

“A servant wants to be rewarded for what he does. A lover wants only to be in love's presence, that ocean whose depth will never be known.”

“The beginning of pride and hatred lies in worldly desire, and the strength of your desire if from habit. When an evil tendency becomes confirmed by habit, rage is triggered when anyone restrains you.”

“Snake's poison is life to the snake; it is in relation to man that it means "death.”

“The way to learn German, is, to read the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know every word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by heart.”

“A dilettantism in nature is barren and unworthy. A fop of fields is no better than his brother on Broadway.”

“Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.”