The most congenial social occasions are those ruled by cheerful deference of each for all.

Self knowledge is best learned not by contemplation, but by action.

Superstition is the poetry of life. It is inherent in man's nature; and when we think it is wholly eradicated, it takes refuge in the strangest holes and corners, whence it peeps out all at once, as soon as it can do it with safety.

We are pantheists as natural scientists, polytheists as poets, and monotheists as moral beings.

All things are only transitory.

I am part of the part that once was everything, Part of the darkness which gave birth to light… Mephistopheles, from Faust.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him. Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is vanity, and will not last a day.