Art is a microscope which the artist fixes on the secrets of his soul, and shows to people these secrets which are common to all.

Art is the uniting of the subjective with the objective, of nature with reason, of the unconscious with the conscious, and therefore art is the highest means of knowledge.

In the evolution of knowledge-mistaken and unnecessary beliefs are forced out and supplanted by truer and more necessary knowledge. So too in the evolution of feelings, which takes place by means of art. Lower feelings-less kind and less needed for the good of humanity-are forced out and replaced by kinder feelings which better serve us individually and collectively. This is the purpose of art.

Art is not a pleasure, a solace, or an amusement; art is great matter.

"A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist."

Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but the desire to find the causes is implanted in man's soul.

Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feeling.

True science investigates and brings to human perception such truths and such knowledge as the people of a given time and society consider most important. Art transmits these truths from the region of perception to the region of emotion.

If people lacked the capacity to receive the thoughts of the men who preceded them and to pass on to others their own thoughts, men would be like wild beasts. And if men lacked this other capacity of being infected by art, people would be almost more savage still, and, above all, more separated from and more hostile to one another. Therefore the activity of art is a most important one, as important as the activity of speech itself and as generally diffused.