The mark of highest originality lies in the ability to develop a familiar idea so fruitfully that it would seem no one else would ever have discovered so much to be hidden in it.

Were not the eye made to receive the rays of the sun, it could not behold the sun; if the peculiar power of God lay not in us, how could the godlike charm us?

Happy contractedness of youth, nay, of mankind in general, that they think neither of the high nor the deep, of the true nor the false, but only of what is suited to their own conceptions.

Classicism is health, romanticisim is sickness.

If you want to reach the infinite, then explore every aspect of the finite.

The iron hand of necessity commands, and her stern decree is supreme law, to which the gods even must submit. In deep silence rules the uncounselled sister of eternal fate. Whatever she lays upon thee, endure; perform whatever she commands.

One man's word is no man's word; we should quietly hear both sides.