All men would be masters of others, and no man is lord of himself.

To tremble before anticipated evils is to bemoan what thou hast never lost.

Superstition belongs to the essence of mankind and takes refuge, when one thinks one has suppressed it completely, in the strangest nooks and crannies; once it is safely ensconced there, it suddenly reappears.

two souls, alas, are housed within my breast, and each will wrestle for the mastery there.

To me the external existence of my soul is proved from my idea of activity. If I work incessantly until my death, nature will give me another form of existence when the present can no longer sustain my spirit.

How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!

Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.