Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.

The history of knowledge is a great fugue in which the voices of the nations one after the other emerge.

I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.

Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.

Nothing tells more about the character of a man than the things he makes fun of.

I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

Nothing is worth more than this day. You cannot relive yesterday. Tomorrow is still beyond your reach.