Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: he wants to win applause and therefore he accommodates himself to others

Every bird has its decoy, and every man is led and misled in his own peculiar way.

Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

Everyone believes in his youth that the world really began with him, and that all merely exists for his sake.

Several classical sayings that one likes to repeat had quite a different meaning from the ones later times attributed to them.