I hate all explanations; they who make them deceive either themselves or the other party,-generally both.

Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

I make presents to the mother but think of the daughter.

Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!

Everything perfect in its kind has to transcend its own kind, it must become something different and incomparable. In some notes the nightingale is still a bird; then it rises above its class and seems to suggest to every winged creature what singing is truly like.

That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee, earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.

We blame equally him who is too proud to put a proper value on his own merit and him who prizes too highly his spurious worth.