Nothing in the whole world is of interest to me but my painting and my flowers.
Health is beauty, and the most perfect health is the most perfect beauty.
When misfortunes happen to such as dissent from us in matters of religion, we call them judgments; when to those of our own sect, we call them trials; when to persons neither way distinguished, we are content to attribute them to the settled course of things.
A liar begins with making falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one.
Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed.
Deference is the most complicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.
The calm mind allows one to connect with the inner self, the Soul, the very source of our being. That's where the music lives. That's where my music comes from.
Good fiction challenges us as much as it entertains and these days, we could do with both of these things.
Appearance is something absolute, but reality is not that way - everything is interdependent, not absolute.
Only well-written works will descend to posterity. Fulness of knowledge, interesting facts, even useful inventions, are no pledge of immortality, for they may be employed by more skilful hands; they are outside the man; the style is the man himself.