Every spoken word arouses our self-will.
The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.
To create something you must be something.
Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.
Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.
Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.
Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.
What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
Stood I, O Nature! man alone in thee, Then were it worth one’s while a man to be.
If we could do away with death, we wouldn’t object; to do away with capital punishment will be more difficult. Were that to happen, we would reinstate it from time to time.
Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.
Doubt grows with knowledge.
I hate all bungling as I do sin, but particularly bungling in politics, which leads to the misery and ruin of many thousands and millions of people.
Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
Life is too short to drink bad wine.
The mind is found most acute and most uneasy in the morning. Uneasiness is, indeed, a species of sagacity – a passive sagacity. Fools are never uneasy.