The romance of life begins and ends with two blank pages. Age and extreme old age.

He thought of the mouldering child, which laid its withered thin arms around his soul, as if it were his own, and to whom Death had given as much as a god gave to Endymion, — sleep, eternal youth, and immortality.

Memory, wit, fancy, acuteness, cannot grow young again in old age, but the heart can.

The German language is the organ among the languages.

I have made as much out of myself as could be made of the stuff, and no man should require more.

Universal love is a glove without fingers, which fits all bands alike and none closely; but true affection is like a glove with fingers, which fits one hand only, and sits close to that one.

The darkness of death is like the evening twilight; it makes all objects appear more lovely to the dying.