Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

There is but one poetry,--true poetry.

All of us have life; few of us have an idea of it.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

If everyone sweeps before his own front door, then the street is clean.

Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.

I could never have known so well how paltry men are, and how little they care for really high aims, if I had not tested them by my scientific researches. Thus I saw that most men only care for science so far as they get a living by it, and that they worship even error when it affords them a subsistence.