"There is something terrible in the sight of a highly-gifted man lying under obligations to a fool.
"'No man is a hero to his valet,' the proverb says. But that is only because it requires a hero to recognize a hero. The valet will probably know how to value the valet-hero.
"Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.
"The greatest men are connected with their own century always through some weakness.
"One is apt to regard people as more dangerous than they are.
"Fools and modest people are alike innocuous. It is only your half-fools and your half-wise who are really and truly dangerous.
"There is no better deliverance from the world than through art; and a man can form no surer bond with it than through art.
"Alike in the moment of our highest fortune and our deepest necessity, we require the artist.
"The business of art is with the difficult and the good.
"To see the difficult easily handled, gives us the feeling of the impossible.