Fancy rules over two thirds of the universe, the past, and future, while reality is confined to the present

It is not great, but little good-haps that make up happiness.

Like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, the fiercest hatred is silent.

People will not bear it when advice is violently given, even if it is well founded. Hearts are flowers; they remain open to the softly falling dew, but shut up in the violent downpour of rain.

Humanity is never so beautiful as when praying for forgiveness, or else forgiving another.

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."

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.