The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty of doubts of my own.

All things are only transitory.

Only by joy and sorrow does a person know anything about themselves and their destiny. They learn what to do and what to avoid.

Time does not relinquish its rights, either over human beings or over mountains

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

Beware of dissipating your powers; strive constantly to concentrate them. Genius thinks it can do whatever it sees others doing, but it is sure to repent every ill-judged outlay.

Behavior is a mirror in which every one displays his own image

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

Once you have missed the first buttonhole you’ll never manage to button up

The highest problem of any art is to cause by appearance the illusion of a higher reality.

I don’t know a greater advantage, than to appreciate the worth of an enemy.

Lamps make oil-spots and candles need snuffing; it is only the light of heaven that shines pure and leaves no stain

If you accept people for what they are, they will become worse. Treat them like they should be, and they will become better.

The effects of good music are not just because it’s new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.

An unused life is an early death.

Experience is only half of experience

It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.

Here too it’s masquerade, I find: As everywhere, the dance of mind.I grasped a lovely masked procession,And caught things from a horror show…I’d gladly settle for a false impression,If it would last a little longer,...

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them....

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free

When a human awakens to a great dream and throws the full force of his soul over it, all the universe conspires in your favor.

The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us self-control is disastrous.

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for...

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

In every artist there is a touch of audacity without which no talent is conceivable

To the person with a firm purpose all men and things are servants.

Wisdom is only found in truth.

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

Talent develops in quiet, Character in the torrent of the world

Everything in the world may be endured except continued prosperity.

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

The history of mankind is his character.

Every man has enough power left to carry out that of which he is convinced.

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.

Nothing is to be rated higher than the value of the day.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives.

Man’s greatest achievement is astonishment.

To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult of all.

Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.

Niemand ist mehr Sklave, als der sich für frei hält, ohne es zu sein.None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

He who moves not forward, goes backward.

It is ever true that he who does nothing for others, does nothing for himself.

All that is transitory is but a metaphor.

When a wife has a good husband it is easily seen in her face.

Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.