“Any comparison diminishes the expressive qualities of the terms of the comparison.”

A clear conscience is, for me, an occupied conscience-never empty-the conscience of a man at work until his last breath.

Daydream transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the mark of infinity.

A special kind of beauty exists which is born in language, of language, and for language.

Even a minor event in the life of a child is an event of that child’s world and thus a world event.

Rilke wrote: ‘These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.

Words are clamor-filled shells. There’s many a story in the miniature of a single word!

Man is a creation of desire, not a creation of need.

It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.

He who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach.

There is no original truth, only original error.

Childhood lasts all through life.

We must listen to poets.

A book is a human fact; a great book like Seraphita gathers together numerous psychological elements. These elements become coherent through a sort of psychological beauty. It does the reader a service.

The spoken reverie of substances calls matter to birth, to life, to spirituality.

The words of the world want to make sentences.

The house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.

In symbols one observes an advantage in discovery which is greatest when they express the exact nature of a thing briefly and, as it were, picture it; then indeed the labor of thought is wonderfully diminished.

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you.

When words cease to cling close to things, kingdoms fall, empires wane and diminish.

It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.

Violence diminishes our humanity.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

That which serves our spirits enhances our bodies. That which diminishes our spirits diminishes our bodies.

Courage enlarges, cowardice diminishes resources.