The animal merely makes a bed, which he warms with his body in a sheltered place; but man, having discovered fire, boxes up some air in a spacious apartment, and warms that, instead of robbing himself, makes that his bed, in which he can move about divested of more cumbrous clothing, maintain a kind of summer in the midst of winter, and by means of windows even admit the light and with a lamp lengthen out the day.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

I know very well what Goethe meant when he said that he never had a chagrin but he made a poem out of it. I have altogether too much patience of this kind.

Music never stops; it is only the listening that is intermittent.

In the love of narrow souls I make many short voyages but in vain-I find no sea room-but in great souls I sail before the wind without a watch, and never reach the shore.

I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

In the winter, warmth stands for all virtue.