Everyone thinks that the principal thing to the tree is the fruit, but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.

The heart and hand of those who always mete out become callous from always meting out.

Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

How much beer is in German intelligence?

How difficult it is to live when one feels that the judgment of many millenniums is around one and against one.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.