“It is at despair at not being able to be noble and beautiful by natural means that we have made up our faces so strangely.”

“We never surrendered. We always kept in our hearts the most noble, beautiful feeling that sets human beings apart: hope.”

“I agree with you," replied the stranger; "we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves -- such a friend ought to be -- do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I -- I have lost everything, and cannot begin life anew.”

“Beauty puts a face on God. When we gaze at nature, at a loved one, at a work of art, our soul immediately recognizes it and is drawn to the face of God.”

“Let it not be a beautiful face,' I thought, 'but to make up for that, let it be a noble, an expressive, and, above all, an extremely intelligent one.”

“It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her.”