The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

A distracted existence leads us to no goal

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one's thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.

One is led astray alike by sympathy and coldness, by praise and by blame

The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinion of its young people, those under twenty-five.

Reason looks at necessity as the basis of the world; reason is able to turn chance in your favor and use it. Only by having reasonremain strong and unshakable can we be called a god of the earth.

When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.