The greatest step forward would be to see that everything factual is already theory. The blueness of the sky reveals the basic lawof chromatics. Don't look for anything behind the phenomena, they themselves are the doctrine.

There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.

What you desire when young, you have in abundance when old.

Every man bears something within him that, if it were publicly announced, would excite feelings of aversion.

What you have inherited from your forefathers, it takes work to make it your own.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science.

Men are so inclined to content themselves with what is commonest; the spirit and the senses so easily grow dead to the impressions of the beautiful and perfect, that every one should study, by all methods, to nourish in his mind the faculty of feeling these things. ...For this reason, one ought every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.