Two and two the mathematician continues to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five. – James McNeill Whistler, Whistler Versus Ruskin, 1878

If only I could leave everything as it is, without moving a single star or a single cloud. Oh, if only I could! – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awake — Aye, what then? – Samuel Taylor Coleridge