It is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being... He can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid by whose bedside he is seated.

Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true nor the false, but only of what is suited to their own conceptions.

A useless life is an early death.

Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.

What right those who govern have to govern they don't question, they just govern. Whether the people have a right to depose them that doesn't concern them. All they are concerned with is that the people will not be tempted to depose them.

Passions are defects or virtues in the highest power.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.