What is the use of theorizing as to wherein lies the charm that moves us?

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

Of what use is the memory of facts, if not to serve as an example of good or of evil?

One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.

Art ought never to be considered except in its relations with its ideal beauty.

What it values most of all is the sum total of events and the advance of civilization, which carries individuals along with it; but, indifferent to details, it cares less to have them real than noble or, rather, grand and complete.