Writing history is a method of getting rid of the past.

The child, offered the mother's breast, Will not in the beginning grab it; But soon it clings to it with zest. And thus at wisdom's copious breasts You'll drink each day with greater zest.

Few rash of any modern nation have a proper sense of an aesthetical whole; they praise and blame by parts; they are charmed by passages. And who has greater reason to rejoice in this than actors, since the stage is ever but a patched and piecemeal matter?

Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

They should be ashamed of themselves, all these sober people!

We can most safely achieve truly universal tolerance when we respect that which is characteristic in the individual and in nations, clinging, though, to the conviction that the truly meritorious is unique by belonging to all of mankind.

The art of living rightly is like all arts; it must be learned and practiced with incessant care.