Not out of those, on whom systems of education have exhausted their culture, comes the helpful giant to destroy the old or to build the new, but out of unhandselled savage nature, out of terrible Druids and Berserkirs, come at last Alfred and Shakespeare.

He, who loves the bristle of bayonets, only sees in their glitter what beforehand he feels in his hand.

Every book is good to read which sets the reader in a working mood.

Men are so charmed with valor that they have pleased themselves with being called lions, leopards, eagles and dragons, from the animals contemporary with us in the geologic formations.

We judge of a man's wisdom by his hope, knowing that the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

Men over forty are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.