You ardently strive for freedom, and I do wish you were free--but, rather than for your sake, so that government won't be.

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.

It is open to question whether the highly individualized characters we find in Shakespeare are perhaps not detrimental to the dramatic effect. The human being disappears to the same degree as the individual emerges.

Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun.

My anger thought you too ignoble for my love, and close examination finds you too magnificent, and only equals are joined together smoothly.

When mundane, lowly activities are at stake, too much insight is detrimental — far-sightedness errs in immediate concerns.

The ramparts of Vienna are crumbling into the sand; no one wants to live so confined, however, the entire country is already surrounded by a Chinese wall!