"One must ask children and birds how..." - Quote by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

“Could we perfect human nature, we might also expect a perfect state of things.”

“Ah! my poor brain is racked and crazed, My spirit and senses amazed!”

“Art is a severe business; most serious when employed in grand and sacred objects. The artist stands higher than art, higher than the object. He uses art for his purposes, and deals with the object after his own fashion.”

“When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place [if we anticipate and look for it, rather than wallow in our 'supposed loss'. It can be helpful to think of the loss of that blessing as simply necessary to make way for another different blessing].”

“I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, 'It tastes sweet, does it not?' 'You've caught me,' grief answered, 'and you've ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it's a blessing?”

“Many people know so little about what is beyond their short range of experience. They look within themselves - and find nothing! Therefore they conclude that there is nothing outside themselves either.”

“The one who is filled by virtue is like a newborn baby.”

“I persuaded him to throw the dirk away; and it was as easy as persuading a child to give up some bright fresh new way of killing itself.”

“When I was a kid I drew like Michelangelo. It took me years to learn to draw like a kid.”