All that is noble is in itself of a quiet nature, and appears to sleep until it is aroused and summoned forth by contrast.

Woe to falsehood! it affords no relief to the breast, like truth; it gives us no comfort, pains him who forges it, and like an arrow directed by a god flies back and wounds the archer.

The march of intellect, which licks all the world into shape, has even reached the devil.

Men are joined by conviction, sundered by opinion.

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.

There is not a single outward mark of courtesy that does not have a deep moral basis.

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