All ages have said and repeated that one should strive to know one's self. This is a strange demand which no one up to now has measured up to and, strictly considered, no one should. With all their study and effort, people are directed to what is outside, to the world about them, and they are kept busy coming to know this and to master it to the extent that their purposes require. . . . How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.

The soul is indestructible and its activity will continue through eternity. It is like the sun, which, to our eyes, seems to set at night; but it has in reality only gone to diffuse its light elsewhere.

You can put up with everything in this world except not with a long stretch of beautiful days.

Nothing is more dangerous than solitude.