Humanity may endure the loss of everything; all its possessions may be turned away without infringing its true dignity - all but the possibility of improvement.

The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.

We do not act because we know, but we know because we are called upon to act; the practical reason is the root of all reason.

Nothing is more destructive of individual character than for a man to lose all faith in his own abilities for the prosecution of his work.

All death in nature is birth, and at the moment of death appears visibly the rising of life. There is no dying principle in nature, for nature throughout is unmixed life, which, concealed behind the old, begins again and develops itself. Death as well as birth is simply in itself, in order to present itself ever more brightly and more like to itself.

He who is firm in will molds the world to himself.

Here below is not the land of happiness: I know it now; it is only the land of toil, and every joy which comes to us is only to strengthen us for some greater labor that is to succeed.