The ultimate foundation of honor is the conviction that moral character is unalterable: a single bad action implies that future actions of the same kind will, under similar circumstances, also be bad.

This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid.

A man of talent will strive for money and reputation; but the spring that moves genius to the production of its works is not as easy to name

The heavy armor becomes the light dress of childhood; the pain is brief, the joy unending.

It is only a man's own fundamental thoughts that have truth and life in them.

The problem with Germans is that they look in the clouds for what lies at their feet.

Our moral virtues benefit mainly other people; intellectual virtues, on the other hand, benefit primarily ourselves; therefore the former make us universally popular, the latter unpopular.