The verdict on Prince Metternich will soon be out: An excellent diplomat and a bad politician.

No spoon has yet destroyed a mouth, but the knife of war cuts portions that are hard to swallow. Perhaps the big mouths of the privileged are able to cope with them, but they dull the teeth of the little people and ruin their stomachs.

As youth lives in the future, so the adult lives in the past: No one rightly knows how to live in the present.

From a distance the rushing of the torrent delights and uplifts us, but it rocks us in a flimsy boat, we are overwhelmed by despair. The same applies to danger.

Gratitude is a fickle thing, indeed. A person taking aim presses the weapon to his chest and cheek, but when he hits, he discardsit with indifference.

To enlist the support of the people and of parliament, you only have to propose a profitable villainy.

The first indication of a young person's growing smarter is that he no longer understands the things which he used to consider quite intelligible and self-evident.