All truths are old, and all that we have to do is recognize and utter them anew.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.

I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe.

Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.

Never by reflection, but only by doing is self- knowledge possible to one.

But one must know where one stands, and where the others wish to go.