I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.
We don't get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.
The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.
How many years must a man do nothing, before he can at all know what is to be done and how to do it!
The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
The most fortunate of men, Be he a king or commoner, is he Whose welfare is assured in his own home.
Modern poets mix too much water with their ink. [Ger., Neuere Poeten thun viel Wasser in die Tinte.]
He who serves the public is a poor animal; he worries himself to death and no one thanks him for it.
When she sees the leaves fall, they raise no other idea in her mind than that winter is approaching.
I consider him of no account who esteems himself just as the popular breath may chance to raise him.
We must not take the faults of our youth with us into old age, for age brings along its own defects.
It is better to be doing the most insignificant thing than to reckon even a half-hour insignificant.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent.
The loss of a much-prized treasure is only half felt when we have not regarded its tenure as secure.