Everything great and intelligent is in the minority

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty.

If you inquire what people are like here, I must answer, "The same as everywhere."

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.

Everyone holds his fortune in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it's the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The Skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.

Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.