Belief is not the beginning of knowledge – it is the end.
Sing it not in mournful numbers.
It is one of Heaven’s best gifts to hold such a dear creature in one’s arms.
It is sometimes essential for a husband and a wife to quarrel – they get to know each other better.
The effects of good music are not just because it’s new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.
Nature goes on her way, and all that to us seems an exception is really according to order.
There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the light, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.
A leaf that is destined to grow large is full of grooves and wrinkles at the start. Now if one has no patience and wants it smooth offhand like a willow leaf, there is trouble ahead.
Patriotism ruins history.
Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.
Our modern wars make many unhappy while they last and none happy when they are over.
Napoleon for the sake of a good name broke in pieces half the world.
Treat a person as they are, they will remain so. Treat a person the way that person can be and is capable of being and that person will become as he or she can be and should be.
God could cause us considerable embarrassment by revealing all the secrets of nature to us: we should not know what to do for sheer apathy and boredom.
We see only what we know.
Truth is a torch but a tremendous one. That is why we hurry past it, shielding our eyes, indeed, in fear of getting burned.
Ye great teachers: listen to what you say!
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.
No one should be rich except those who understand it.
The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.