“A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.”

“The beautiful is not that which we love and because we love it, but that which by its objective value obliges us to love it.”

“Caution is the path to mediocrity. Gliding, passionless mediocrity is all that most people think they can achieve.”

“The assumption that we would ever be called upon to perform this second task now appeared quite clearly to me as the most extravagant folly, based on a wild delusion conceived by a raving idiot.”

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”

“There are secret humiliations to which no man would submit, as such, but from which love, when it is real, can take away the sting and the poison.”

“Foo, a beautiful gal wastes her time gracin' up this swamp.”

“It is not expensive to be beautiful. It takes only a little effort to be presentable and beautiful. But it takes some effort. And unfortunately people think of beauty as luxury, beauty as frivolity, … or extravagance. Beauty is a discipline, beauty is art, is harmony, in the ideological sense and in the theological sense, beauty is God and love made real. And the ultimate reach in this world is beauty.”

“The most perfectly constructed object in nature, and also the most beautiful object in nature, is the human form as it approaches perfection. This, then, is the criterion of construction as it is of design. The study of its beauties is the veritable key to art…”

“One of the most beautiful compensations in life is that no person can help another without helping themselves”