As the stars are the glory of the sky, so great men are the glory of their country, yea, of the whole earth. The hearts of great men are the stars of earth; and doubtless when one looks down from above upon our planet, these hearts are seen to send forth, a silvery light just like the stars of heaven.

Reason exercises merely the function of preserving order, is, so to say, the police in the region of art. In life it is mostly a cold arithmetician summing up our follies.

Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle. For it stands halfway between thought and phenomenon, between spirit and matter.

Round my cradle shimmered the last moonbeams of the eighteenth century and the first morning rays of the nineteenth.

All special charters of freedom must be abrogated where the universal law of freedom is to flourish.

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you. Oh, what lies there are in kisses!

There is only one writer in whom I find something that reminds me of the directness of style which is found in the Bible. It is Shakespeare.