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.

Must it ever be thus-that the source of our happiness must also be the fountain of our misery? The full and ardent sentiment which animated my heart with the love of nature, overwhelming me with a torrent of delight, and which brought all paradise before me, has now become an insupportable torment, a demon which perpetually pursues and harrasses me.

By the artist's seizing any one object from nature, that object no longer is part of nature. One can go so far as to say that theartist creates the object in that very moment by emphasizing its significant, characteristic, and interesting aspects or, rather, by adding the higher values.

It is in the half fools and the half wise that the greatest danger lies.

Generosity wins favour for everyone, especially when it is accompanied by modesty.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

Everything that we encounter leaves traces behind. Everything contributes imperceptibly to our education