You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer.

As man is, so is his God. And thus is God oft strangely odd.

And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.

Theories are usually the over-hasty efforts of an impatient understanding that would gladly be rid of phenomena, and so puts in their place pictures, notions, nay, often mere words.

The sickness of the heart is most easily got rid of by complaining and soothing confidence.

One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.

Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freed handling.