True religion teaches us to reverence what is under us, to recognize humility and poverty, and, despite mockery and disgrace, wretchedness, suffering, and death, as things divine.
To the man of thought almost nothing is really ridiculous.
Riches amassed in haste will diminish; but those collected by hand and little by little will multiply.
The rogue has everywhere the advantage.
To be active is the primary vocation of man.
Beauty vanishes; virtue is lasting.
It is impossible that beauty should ever distinctly appreciate itself.
Properly speaking, we learn from those books only that we cannot judge. The author of a book that I am competent to criticise would have to learn from me.
A man is not little when he finds it difficult to cope with circumstances, but when circumstances overmaster him.
He who would reproach an author for obscurity should look into his own mind to see whether it is quite clear there. In the dusk the plainest writing is illegible.
How circumscribed is woman’s destiny!
Of all thieves, fools are the worst; they rob you of time and temper.
The world cannot do without great men, but great men are very troublesome to the world.
Wouldst thou ever roam abroad? See, what is good lies by thy side. Only learn to catch happiness, for happiness is ever by you.
Errors belong to libraries; truth, to the human mind.
Literature is a fragment of a fragment. Of all that ever happened, or has been said, but a fraction has been written; and of this but little is extant.
Of the book of books most wondrous is the tender book of love.
Where confidence is wanting, the most beautiful flower in the garland of love is missing.
A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.
A well-bred carriage is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training.