The young should early be trained to bear being left alone; for it is a source of happiness and peace of mind.

Poetry is related to philosophy as experience is related to empirical science. Experience makes us acquainted with the phenomenon in the particular and by means of examples, science embraces the whole of phenomena by means of general conceptions. So poetry seeks to make us acquainted with the Platonic Ideas through the particular and by means of examples. Philosophy aims at teaching, as a whole and in general, the inner nature of things which expresses itself in these. One sees even here that poetry bears more the character of youth, philosophy that of old age.

A book can never be anything more than the impression of its author’s thoughts. The value of these thoughts lies either in the matter about which he has thought, or in the form in which he develops his matter — that is to say, what he has thought about it.

Change alone is eternal, perpetual, immortal.

You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing.

Whatever folly men commit, be their shortcomings or their vices what they may, let us exercise forbearance; remember that when these faults appear in others it is our follies and vices that we behold.

In truth the most striking figure for the relation of the two is that of the strong blind man carrying the sighted lame man on his shoulders.