It does not prove a thing to be right because the majority say it is so.
The world’s history is constant, like the laws of nature, and simple, like the souls of men. The same conditions continually produce the same results.
Obedience is the Christian’s crown.
Stern is the visage of necessity.
Misery travels free through the whole world!
The first great law is to obey.
Life is earnest, art is gay.
The hat is the pride of man; for he who cannot keep his hat on before kings and emperors is no free man.
Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.
Truth suffers no loss if a vehement youth fails in finding it, in the same way that virtue and religion suffer no detriment if a criminal denies them.
I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, through the world’s history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.
He, that noble prize possessing He that boasts a friend that’s true, He whom woman’s love is blessing, Let him join the chorus too!
It is through beauty that we arrive at freedom.
What is the short meaning of the long speech?
Man is made of ordinary things, and habit is his nurse.
Courage, ne’er by sorrow broken! Aid where tears of virtue flow; Faith to keep each promise spoken! Truth alike to friend and foe!
Joy, thou spark from Heav’n immortal, Daughter of Elysium! Drunk with fire, toward Heaven advancing Goddess, to thy shrine we come. Thy sweet magic brings together What stern Custom spreads afar; All men become brothers Where thy happy wing-beats are.
The lemonade is weak, like your soul.
O jealousy! thou magnifier of trifles.
Sentimental poetry differs from naive poetry in that it relates the real state at which the latter stops to ideas and applies ideas to that reality.