He who moves not forward, goes backward

A noble person attracts noble people, and knows how to hold on to them.

Enjoy what you can, endure what you must

The highest problem of every art is, by means of appearances, to produce the illusion of a loftier reality

When you praise someone you call yourself his equal

Great endowments often announce themselves in youth in the form of singularity and awkwardness.

Ambition and love are the wings to great deeds.

Man errs as long as he strives

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Gray is the color of all theory

Their is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

What you inherit from your fathermust first be earned before it’s yours.

Difficulties increase the nearer we get to the goal.

Wenn die Blattläuse auf den Rosenzweigen sitzen und sich hübsch dick und grün gesogen haben, dann kommen die Ameisen und saugen ihnen den filtrierten Saft aus den Leibern. Und so geht’s weiter, und wir haben’s...

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks they can talk about language.

My father gave my stature tall,And rule of life decorous;My mother my nature genialAnd joy in making stories;Full well my grandsire loved the fair,A tendency that lingers;My grandam gold and gems so rare,An itch still...

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.

If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that

What is hardest of all? That which seems most simple: to see with your eyes what is before your eyes

If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is; but if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what...

A purpose you impart is no longer your own.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

Everyone hears only what he understands.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Objects in pictures should so be arranged as by their very position to tell their own story.

I had toward the poetic art a peculiar relation which was only practical after I had cherished in my mind for a long time a subject which possessed me, a model which inspired me, a...

People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.

Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author

Giving is the business of the rich.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

Love can do much, but duty more.

When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision… But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant ‘there’ becomes the...

If the whole world I once could seeOn free soil stand, with the people freeThen to the moment might I say,Linger awhile. . .so fair thou art.

No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going, act as...

Des Menschen Kraft, im Dichter offenbartThe human power is revealed by poetIl potere dell’umanità si rivela nel poeta

Whenever I hear people talking about “liberal ideas,” I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without...

Master and Doctor are my titles; for ten years now, without repose, I held my erudite recitals and led my pupils by the nose.

Few are open to conviction, but the majority of men are open to persuasion

Nothing is true, but that which is simple.

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking; always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you’ll know right away what you amount to.

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.

The world is so full of simpletons and madmen, that one need not seek them in a madhouse

My peace is gone, my heart is heavy.

The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content...

The first and last thing required of genius is, love of the truth.

[Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, supreme chief of the German armed forces, explained the thinking behind the Nazis’] Night and Fog … Efficient and enduring intimidation can only be achieved…by measures by which the relatives of...