What you can do, or think you can, begin it.

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

I don't know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.

Whatever we may say against collections, which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant passages.

I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.

How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.