Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.

One errs as long as one strives.

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.

I will be lord over myself.

Confronted by outstanding merit, there is no way of saving one's ego except by love

Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him! [Ger., Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.