The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.

When we see the many grave-stones which have fallen in, which have been defaced by the footsteps of the congregation, which lie buried under the ruins of the churches, that have themselves crumbled together over them; we may fancy the life after death to be as a second life, into which man enters in the figure, or the picture or the inscription, and lives longer there than when he was really alive. But this figure also, this second existence, dies out too, sooner or later. Time will not allow himself to be cheated of his rights with the monuments of men or with themselves.

Man can only endure a certain degree of unhappiness; what is beyond that either annihilates him or passes by him and leaves him apathetic

A man who cannot command himself will always be a slave.

He who has art and science also has religion, but those who do not have them better have religion.

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

A vi'let on the meadow grew, That no one saw, that no one knew, It was a modest flower. A shepherdess pass'd by that way-- Light footed, pretty and so gay; That way she came, Softly warbling forth her lay.