The highest purpose of intellectual cultivation is to give a man a perfect knowledge and mastery of his own inner self.

If the world is a precipitation of human nature, so to speak, then the divine world is a sublimation of the same. Both occur in one act. No precipitation without sublimation. What goes lost there in agility, is won here.

A certain degree of solitude seems necessary to the full growth and spread of the highest mind; and therefore must a very extensive intercourse with men stifle many a holy germ, and scare away the gods, who shun the restless tumult of noisy companies and the discussion of petty interests.

Only as far as a man is happily married to himself is he fit for married life and family life in general.

A complete need should not exist... love, life in common with loved ones?

Many books are longer than they seem. They have indeed no end. The boredom that they cause is truly absolute and infinite.

Where children are, there is the golden age.