The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

How many years you have to keep on doing, until you know what to do and how to do!

Children, like dogs, have so sharp and fine a scent that they detect and hunt out everything--the bad before all the rest. They also know well enough how this or that friend stands with their parents; and as they practice no dissimulation whatever, they serve as excellent barometers by which to observe the degree of favor or disfavor at which we stand with their parents.

Neither a work of nature nor one of art we get to know when they have been finished; we must surprise them in the process of beingcreated so as to understand them to some degree.

Who are you then?" "I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.