We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.

As for solitude, I cannot understand how certain people seek to lay claim to intellectual stature, nobility of soul and strength of character, yet have not the slightest feeling for seclusion; for solitude, I maintain, when joined with a quiet contemplation of nature, a serene and conscious faith in creation and the Creator, and a few vexations from outside is the only school for a mind of lofty endowment.

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.

Do not, I beg you, look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson.

Love can do much, but duty more.

Everyone is deceived in his hopes, cheated in his expectations.

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