“Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential.”

“Death is the mother of beauty. Only the perishable can be beautiful, which is why we are unmoved by artificial flowers.”

“The people in the world, and the objects in it, and the world as a whole, are not absolute things, but on the contrary, are the phenomena of perception... If we were all alike: if we were millions of people saying do, re, mi, in unison, One poet would be enough... But we are not alone, and everything needs expounding all the time because, as people live and die, each one perceiving life and death for himself, and mostly by and in himself, there develops a curiosity about the perceptions of others. This is what makes it possible to go on saying new things about old things.”

“Man is an eternal sophomore.”

“It is necessary to any originality to have the courage to be an amateur.”

“Reality is a cliché from which we escape by metaphor.”

“It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom.”