I examine my own being, and find there a world, but a world rather of imagination and dim desires, than of distinctness and living power. Then everything swims before my senses, and I smile and dream while pursuing my way through the world.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.

Nothing is more damaging to the truth than an old error.

Man's restlessness makes him strive.

We gladly put antiquity above our age but not posterity. Only a father doesn't begrudge his son's talent.

The miller imagines that the corn grows only to make his mill turn.