A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him...but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.

For the butterfly, mating and propagation involve the sacrifice of life, for the human being, the sacrifice of beauty.

Our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.

When I consider the narrow limits within which our active and inquiring faculties are confined; when I see how all our energies are wasted in providing for mere necessities, which again have no further end than to prolong a wretched existence; and then that all our satisfaction concerning certain subjects of investigation ends in nothing better than a passive resignation... when I consider all this... I am silent.

Our virtues and view spring from one root.

Nothing should be valued higher than the value of the day.

Everything which is properly business we must keep carefully separate from life. Business requires earnestness and method; life must have a freed handling.