“He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration, in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.”

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”

“He who wishes to serve his country must have not only the power to think, but the will to act”

“Then Prometheus, in his perplexity as to what preservation he could devise, stole from Hephaestus and Athena wisdom in the arts together with fire -- since by no means without fire could it be acquired or helpfully used by any -- and he handed it there and then as a gift to man.”

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”

“Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.”

“The man who finds that in the course of his life he has done a lot of wrong often wakes up at night in terror, like a child with a nightmare, and his life is full of foreboding: but the man who is conscious of no wrongdoing is filled with cheerfulness and with the comfort of old age.”