At bottom, no real object is unpoetical, if the poet knows how to use it properly.
Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men.
The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.
Fret not over the irretrievable, but ever act as if thy life were just begun.
On all the peaks lies peace.
Poor fool! in whose petty estimation all things are little.
Piety, like nobility, has its aristocracy.
If you wish a wise answer, you must put a rational question.
What is the freedom of the most free? To do what is right!
We accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out, only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.
The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.
To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.
A man would create another man if one did not already exist, but a woman might live an eternity without even thinking of reproducing her own sex.
As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.
Who strives always to the utmost, him can we save.
He is a man whom it is impossible to please, because he is never pleased with himself.
Each traveler should know what he has to see, and what properly belongs to him, on a journey.
There is nothing more frightful than for a teacher to know only what his scholars are intended to know.
I let everyone follow his own bent, that I may be free to follow mine.
Always to distrust is an error, as well as always to trust.