It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
Love truth, but pardon error.
Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God’s pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
Perfection is attained by slow degrees; it requires the hand of time.
So it is the human condition that to wish for the greatness of one’s fatherland is to wish evil to one’s neighbors. The citizen of the universe would be the man who wishes his country never to be either greater or smaller, richer or poorer.
History is the lie commonly agreed upon.
This agglomeration which was called and which still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.
Nature has always had more force than education.
It is as impossible to translate poetry as it is to translate music.
The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.
Great men have all been formed either before academies or independent of them.
Democracy is just a filler for textbooks! Do you actually believe that public opinion influences the government?
The rude beginnings of every art acquire a greater celebrity than the art in perfection; he who first played the fiddle was looked upon as a demigod.
Cherish those who seek the truth but beware of those who find it.
I am convinced that everything has come down to us from the banks of the Ganges, astronomy, astrology, metempsychosis, etc...
A good imitation is the most perfect originality.
Friends should be preferred to kings.
Writing is the painting of the voice.
Poetry is the music of the soul, and, above all, of great and feeling souls.