Many a smiling face hides a mourning heart; but grief alone teaches us what we are.
Arrow-swift the present sweepeth, and motionless forever stands the past.
The very plants turn with a joyful transport to the light.
Intellect – brain force.
Gray hairs are death’s blossoms.
Futurity is impregnable to mortal ken: no prayer pierces through heaven’s adamantine walls. Whether the birds fly right or left, whatever be the aspect of the stars, the book of nature is a maze, dreams are a lie, and every sign a falsehood.
Whoever fails to turn aside the ills of life by prudent forethought, must submit to fulfill the course of destiny.
Most gladly would I give the blood-stained laurel for the first violet which March brings us, the fragrant pledge of the new-fledged year.
I know that we often tremble at an empty terror; yet the false fancy brings a real misery.
It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful that you can penetrate into the realm of knowledge. That which we feel here as beauty we shall one day know as truth.
Illusion is brief, but repentance is long.
There are occasions when the general belief of the people, even though it be groundless, works its effect as sure as truth itself.
There is no solitude in nature.
No, no! I do nature injustice. She gave us inventive faculty, and set us naked, and helpless on the shore of this great ocean, – the world; swim those who can, the heavy may go to the bottom.
Every great mind seeks to labor for eternity. All men are captivated by immediate advantages; great minds alone are excited by the prospect of distant good.
Love can sun the realms of night.
There is a nobility in the world of manners.
O God, how lovely still is life!
Be true, and thou shalt fetter time with everlasting chain.
To the fool-king belongs the world.