Artists have a double relationship towards nature: they are her master and her slave at the same time. They are her slave in so far as they must work with means of this world so as to be understood; her master in so far as they subject these means to their higher goals and make them subservient to them.

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.

Enjoy what thou has inherited from thy sires if thou wouldn't really possess it. What we employ and use is never an oppressive burden; what the moment brings forth, that only can it profit by.

That is the way of youth and life in general: that we do not understand the strategy until after the campaign is over.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.

A well-bred carriage is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training.

As beauteous is the world, and many a joy Floats through its wide dominion. But, alas, When we would seize the winged good, it flies.