I do not literally paint that table, 

but the emotion it produces upon me.

Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. 

My strength lies solely in my tenacity.

My powers are ordinary. 

Only my application brings me success.

Art does not reproduce what we see; 

rather, it makes us see.

The most important of my discoveries have been suggested to me by my failures.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.

Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.

Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth.

Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds, 

by means of what are commonly termed par excellence the exact sciences, 

may then, with the fair white wings of imagination, 

hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.

Who overcomes by force 

hath overcome but half his foe.

Music at times is more like perfume than mathematics.

To have his path made clear for him 

is the aspiration of every human being 

in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

Sometimes dreams are wiser than waking.

Good books, like good friends, are few and chosen; 

the more select, the more enjoyable.

When I tell the truth, 

it is not for the sake of convincing 

those who do not know it, 

but for the sake of defending 

those that do.

Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

The mind loves the unknown. 

It loves images whose meaning is unknown, 

since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.

The ear is the avenue to the heart.

The most significant moment in the course of intellectual development, 

which gives birth to the purely human forms of practical and abstract intelligence, 

occurs when speech and practical activity, 

two previously completely independent lines of development, 

converge.

Memories have huge staying power, 

but like dreams, 

they thrive in the dark, 

surviving for decades 

in the deep waters of our minds 

like shipwrecks on the sea bed.

To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.

Life is like music: 

it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, 

not by rule.

Life is a journey that must be travelled 

no matter how bad the roads and accommodations.

We do not take humour seriously enough.

Post-modernism has cut off the present from all futures. 

The daily media add to this by cutting off the past. 

Which means that critical opinion is often orphaned in the present.

If one could conclude as to the nature of the Creator 

from a study of his creation

it would appear that God has a special fondness 

for stars and beetles.

When ignorance gets started 

it knows no bounds.

We are enriched by our reciprocate differences.

Those that vow the most are the least sincere.

My education was the liberty I had 

to read indiscriminately 

and all the time, 

with my eyes hanging out.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

Science is all metaphor.

Life is the farce which everyone has to perform.

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. 

The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

We are all in the gutter, 

but some of us are looking at the stars.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another 

and to us; 

nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

There are some good rules 

and there are some lousy rules.

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.

Progress is man's ability to complicate simplicity.

It is better to err on the side of daring than the side of caution.

In the world of words, the imagination is one of the forces of nature.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

What matters is to live in the present, 

live now, 

for every moment is now. 

It is your thoughts and acts of the moment 

that create your future.

Transcendence constitutes selfhood.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.