Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
To be sure, a good work of art can and will have moral consequences, but to demand of the artists moral intentions, means ruiningtheir craft.
People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were.
The greatest happiness for the thinking person is to have explored the explorable and to venerate in equanimity that which cannotbe explored.
Truth is a torch, but a huge one, and so it is only with blinking eyes what we all of us try to get past it, in actual terror of being burnt.
Certain faults are necessary for the existence of the individual. We would resent it if old friends were to get rid of certain peculiarities.
Man's highest merit always is, as much as possible, to rule external circumstances and as little as possible to let himself be ruled by them.
How can we learn self-knowledge? Never by taking thought but rather by action. Try to do your duty and you'll soon discover what you're like.
Every individual who is not creative has a negative, narrow, exclusive taste and succeeds in depriving creative being of its energy and life.
If society gives up the right to impose the death penalty, then self-help will appear again and personal vendettas will be around the corner.
When intelligent and sensible people despise knowledge in their old age, it is only because they have asked too much of it and of themselves.
This is what they all come to who exclusively harp on experience. They do not stop to consider that experience is only one half of experience.
Hell begins the day that God grants you the vision to see all that you could have done, should have done, and would have done, but did not do.
Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man.
There are situations in which hope and fear run together, in which they mutually destroy one another and lose themselves in dull indifference.
I had rather be Mercury, the smallest among seven [planets], revolving round the sun, than the first among five [moons] revolving round Saturn.
Three things are to be looked to in a building: that it stand on the right spot; that it is securely founded; that it be successfully executed.
Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.
In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.
The dear good people don't know how long it takes to learn to read. I've been at it eighty years, and can't say yet that I've reached the goal.
Every great idea exerts, on first appearing, a tyrannical influence: Hence, the advantages it brings are turned all too soon into disadvantages.
Let us not dream that reason can ever be popular. Passions, emotions, may be made popular; but reason remains ever the property of an elect few.
Napoleon affords us an example of the danger of elevating one's self to the absolute, and sacrificing everything to the carrying out of an idea.
What is the true test of character unless it be its progressive development in the bustle and turmoil, in the action and reaction of daily life.
If the whole world I once could see On free soil stand, with the people free Then to the moment might I say, Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.
The first and last thing required of genius is the love of truth. [Ger., Das erste und letzte, was vom Genie gefordert wird, ist Wahreits-Liebe.]
A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.
Tell me, how do you cope so calmly With crazy youth's arrogant way? Indeed, youth would be insufferable, Had I myself not also been insufferable.
Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and watching for the morrow,- He knows you not, ye heavenly Powers.
To know of someone here and there whom we accord with, who is living on with us, even in silence - - this makes our earthly ball a peopled garden.
The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through all eternity.
Where a man has a passion for meditating without the capacity of thinking, a particular idea fixes itself fast, and soon creates a mental disease.
Whoever makes it a rule to test action by thought, thought by action, cannot falter, and if he does, will soon find his way back to the right road.
When toward the Devil's Hose we tread, Woman's a thousand steps behind. [Ger., Denn geht es zu des Bosen Haus Das Weib hat tausend Schritt voraus.]
To the world you might be one person, but to one person, you might be the world. Kindness is the golden chain by which our world is bound together.
It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.
The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.
The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.
To know someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts expressed That can make life a garden.
I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
Music is so elevated that it is beyond the reach of intellect and there flows from it an influence which is all-potent, and which noone can explain.
Men in a state of nature, uncivilized nations, children, have a great fondness for colors in their utmost brightness, and especially for yellow-red.
There is no past we can bring back by longing for it. There is only an eternal now that builds and creates out of the past something new and better.
Love grants in a moment What toil can hardly achieve in an age. [Ger., In einem Augenblick gewahrt die Liebe Was Muhe kaum in langer Zeit erreicht.]
The passions are like those demons with which Afrasahiab sailed down the Orus. Our only safety consists in keeping them asleep. If they we are lost.
Reason can never be popular. Passions and feelings may become popular, but reason will always remain the sole property of a few eminent individuals.
Mathematicians are like Frenchmen: whatever you say to them they translate into their own language and forthwith it is something entirely different.
Wherever a man may happen to turn, whatever a man may undertake, he will always end up by returning to that path which nature has marked out for him.
I have observed that as long as one lives and bestirs himself, he can always find food and raiment, though it may not be of the choicest description.
If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything.
All one needs to do is declare oneself free and one will immediately feel dependent. If you dare to declare yourself dependent, you feel independent.