To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application.

Whatever Nature undertakes, she can only accomplish it in a sequence. She never makes a leap.

Not all that is presented to us as history has really happened; and what really happened did not actually happen the way it is presented to us; moreover, what really happened is only a small part of all that happened. Everything in history remains uncertain, the largest events as well as the smallest occurrence.

The best pleasures of this world are not quite true.

I wish the stage were as narrow as the wire of a tighrope dancer so that no incompetent would dare step upon it.

Love can do much, but duty more.