He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.

Neither art thou the man to catch the fiend and hold him! [Ger., Du bist noch nicht der Mann den Teufel festzuhalten.

Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.

A world without love would be no world.

Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them.

Character - in things great and small - is indicated when a man (or person) pursues with sustained follow-through what he feels himself capable of doing.

Alas, I have studied philosophy, the law as well as medicine, and to my sorrow, theology; studied them well with ardent zeal, yet here I am, a wretched fool, no wiser than I was before.