But it is the province of religion, of philosophy, of pure poetry only, to go beyond life, beyond time, into eternity.

Of what use were the arts if they were only the reproduction and the imitation of life?

The human mind, I believe, cares for the True only in the general character of an epoch.

On the day when man told the story of his life to man, history was born.

France, for example, loves at the same time history and the drama, because the one explores the vast destinies of humanity, and the other the individual lot of man.

The acts of the human race on the world's stage have doubtless a coherent unity, but the meaning of the vast tragedy enacted will be visible only to the eye of God, until the end, which will reveal it perhaps to the last man.