The first forty years of our life give the text, the next thirty furnish the commentary upon it, which enables us rightly to understand the true meaning and connection of the text with its moral and its beauties.

Every human perfection is allied to a defect into which it threatens to pass, but it is also true that every defect is allied to a perfection.

Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)

Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

Not to go to the theater is like making one's toilet without a mirror.

Animals hear about death for the first time when they die.

A reproach can only hurt if it hits the mark. Whoever knows that he does not deserve a reproach can treat it with contempt.