The purer the golden vessel, the more readily is it bent; the higher worth of woman is sooner lost than that of man.

If self-knowledge is the road to virtue, so is virtue still more the road to self-knowledge.

The German language is the organ among the languages.

Sorrows gather around great souls as storms do around mountains; but, like them, they break the storm and purify the air of the plain beneath them.

There are so many tender and holy emotions flying about in our inward world, which, like angels, can never assume the body of an outward act; so many rich and lovely flowers spring up which bear no seed, that it is a happiness poetry was invented, which receives into its limbs all these incorporeal spirits, and the perfume of all these flowers.

A sky full of silent suns.

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it.