What have the Germans gained by their boasted freedom of the press, except the liberty of abusing each other as they like?

If you are convinced of a matter, you must take sides or you don't deserve to succeed.

What in us the women leave uncultivated, children cultivate when we retain them near us.

Whoever, in middle age, attempts to realize the wishes and hopes of his early youth, invariably deceives himself. Each ten years of a man's life has its own fortunes, its own hopes, its own desires.

Life teaches us to be less harsh with ourselves and with others.

[W]hat counts is that one perceives excellence and dares to give it expression, which sounds little but is in fact a great deal.

Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.