All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

What chance gathers she easily scatters. A great person attracts great people and knows how to hold them together.

There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.

Superstition is poetry of life, so that it does not injure the poet to be superstitious

Everything great and intelligent is in the minority

A human being needs only a small plot of ground on which to be happy, and even less to lie beneath.

For in music there is no material to be deducted.

To end the greatest work designed,A thousand hands need but one mind.

schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff” (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was...

Nothing is worth more than this day.

In all things it is better to hope than to despair

Since Time is not a person we can overtake when he is gone, let us honor him with mirth and cheerfulness of heart while he is passing

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

What is not fully understood is not possessed.

Certain flaws are necessary for the whole. It would seem strange if old friends lacked certain quirks.

Continue to make the demands of the day your immediate concern, and take occasion to test the purity of your hearts and the steadfastness of your spirits. When you then take a deep breath and...

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

The unnatural, that too is natural

Superstition is the poetry of life.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him, he must regard himself as greater than he is

The Christian religion, though scattered and abroad will in the end gather itself together at the foot of the cross.

A man does not mind being blamed for his faults, and being punished for them, and he patiently suffers much for them; but he becomes impatient if he is required to give them up

He is dead in this world who has no belief in another.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

The public wishes itself to be managed like a woman; one must say nothing to it except what it likes to hear

To create something you must be something.

Eigentlich weiß man nur wenn man wenig weiß – mit dem Wissen wächst der Zweifel.

Life belongs to the living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes.

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which...

Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.

Jesus fühlte rein und dachteNur den Einen Gott im stillen;Wer ihn selbst zum Gotte machte,Kränkte seinen heiligen Willen.

In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. … In the real world, all rests on perseverance.

At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

How can we know ourselves? Never by reflection, but only through action. Begin at once to do your duty and immediately you will know what is inside you.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself.

Only law can give us freedom.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t’were his own.

It is only necessary to grow old to become more charitable and even indulgent. I see no fault committed by others that I have not committed myself.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

Freedom consists not in refusing to recognize anything above us, but in respecting something which is above us; for by respecting it, we raise ourselves to it, and, by our very acknowledgment, prove that we...

What I possess I would gladly retain, change amuses the mind, yet scarcely profits

Every offense is avenged on earth.

He who seizes the right moment, is the right man