In science the new is an advance; but in morals, as contradicting our inner ideals and historic idols, it is ever a retrogression.

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

Jesus is the purest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the pure, who, with his pierced hand has raised empires from their foundations, turned the stream of history from its old channel, and still continues to rule and guide the ages

With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment?

There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.

Art is indeed not the bread but the wine of life.

It has been jestingly said that the works of John Paul Richter are almost unintelligible to any but the Germans, and even to some of them. A worthy German, just before Richter's death, edited a complete edition of his works, in which one particular passage fairly puzzled him. Determined to have it explained at the source, he went to John Paul himself. The author's reply was very characteristic: "My good friend, when I wrote that passage, God and I knew what it meant; it is possible that God knows it still; but as for me, I have totally forgotten."