As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.
Let many things unfold before their eyes, Let the crowd stare and be amazed, for then You’ll win their hearts, and that’s to win the prize;.
Be a man, and conquer an unhappy attachment toward a creature who can do nothing but pity you.
I sometimes cannot understand how she can love another, how she dares love another, when I love nothing in this world so completely, so devotedly, as I love her, when I know only her, and have no other possession.
From youth, I have been accustomed to direct the eyes of my spirit inwards rather than outwards; and hence it is very natural, that, to a certain extent, I should be acquainted with man, while of men I have not the smallest knowledge.
Oftentimes I say to myself, “Thou alone art wretched: all other mortals are happy, none are distressed like thee!” Then I read a passage in an ancient poet, and I seem to understand my own heart. I have so much to endure! Have men before me ever been so wretched?
Content and peace of mind are valuable things: I could wish, my dear friend, that these precious jewels were less transitory.
It is not easy in this world for one person to understand the next one.
Few people are capable of concerning themselves with the most recent past. Either the present holds us violently captive, or we lose ourselves in the distant past and strive with might and main to recall and restore what is irrevocably lost.
How many kings are governed by their ministers – how many ministers by their secretaries? Who, in such cases, is really the chief? He, as it seems to me, who can see through the others, and possesses strength or skill enough to make their power or passions subservient to the execution of his own designs. January.
One hundred times have I been on the point of embracing her. Heavens! What a torment it is to see so much loveliness passing and repassing before us, and yet not dare to lay hold of it. And laying hold is the most natural of human instincts. So not children touch everything they see? And I!
Fairytale: presents impossible events under possible or almost impossible conditions as though they were possible.
Poor souls! their miseries seem so much to please ’em, I scarce can find it in my heart to tease ’em.
Man is too prone, at best, to seek the way that’s easy, He soon grows fond of unconditioned rest;.
The highest achievement possible to man is the full consciousness of his own feelings and thoughts, for this gives him the means of knowing intimately the hearts of others.
Not Art and Science serve, alone; Patience must in the work be shown. Long is the calm brain active in creation; Time, only, strengthens the fine fermentation.
I could tear open my bosom with vexation to think how little we are capable of influencing the feelings of each other. No one can communicate to me those sensations of love, joy, rapture, and delight which I do not naturally possess; and though my heart may glow with the most lively affection, I cannot make the happiness of one in whom the same warmth is not inherent.
When people really deteriorate, their only contribution is malicious joy in the misfortune of others.
Intelligent people are always the best encyclopaedia.
It is the most foolish of all errors for young people of good intelligence to imagine that they will forfeit their originality if they acknowledge truth already acknowledged by others.