Woe to him who would ascribe something like reason to Chance, and make a religion of surrendering to it.

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise, we harden.

What one has wished for in youth, in old age one has in abundance.

Nothing is good for a nation but that which arises from its own core and its own general wants, without apish imitation of another.

Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him! [Ger., Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.

Precaution is better than cure.

What makes poetry? A full heart, brimful of one noble passion.