The mind's eye can nowhere find anything more dazzling or more dark than in man; it can fix itself upon nothing which is more awful, more complex, more mysterious, or more infinite. There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.

The most excellent symbol of the people is the paving stone. One walks on it until it falls on one's head.

The true artist can only labor con amore.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

Work is the law of life, and to reject it as boredom is to submit to it as torment.

Table talk and Lovers' talk equally elude the grasp; Lovers' talk is clouds, table talk is smoke.

To love or have loved is all-sufficing. We must not ask for more. No other pearl is to be found in the shadowfolds of life. To love is an accomplishment.