We love a girl for very different qualities than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding.

On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Nothing is more odious than the majority, for it consists of a few powerful leaders, a certain number of accommodating scoundrels and submissive weaklings, and a mass of men who trot after them without thinking, or knowing their own minds.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

The misfortune in the state is, that nobody can enjoy life in peace, but that everybody must govern; and in art, that nobody will enjoy what has been produced, but that every one wants to reproduce on his own account.

Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.