Do not be deceived! The busiest people harbor the greatest weariness, their restlessness is weakness--they no longer have the capacity for waiting and idleness.

Not infrequently, we encounter copies of important human beings; and here, too, as in the case of paintings, most people prefer the copies to the originals.

Happiness is a fata morgana. the only way to not end up unhappy is to not long for happiness.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.

You implanted your highest goal into the heart of those passions: then they became your virtues and joys.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins to grow like a mushroom - for example, in senates and learned societies