To test a modest man's modesty do not investigate if he ignores applause, find out if he abides criticism.

A wise man can and should stand above his times, not so the poet, but he should be their apex.

A book is quite a beautiful thing, even more so learning. Together, however, all they amount to is called book-learning.

A love that dies has never lived.

As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.

How frightening it is to have reached the height of human accomplishment in art that must forever borrow from life's abundance.

German diligence is actually endurance.