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

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

I can promise to be frank, I cannot promise to be impartial.

That is the true season of love; when we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved as much before, and that no one will ever love in the same...

The best slave is the one who thinks he is free.

Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muß auch anwenden; es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muß auch tun.

Artists and artisans both demonstrate with perfect clarity that a person is least able to appropriate for himself those things which are most peculiarly his. His works leave him as birds do the best in...

I was on the point of breaking off the conversation, for nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.

I am the spirit that negates.And rightly so, for all that comes to beDeserves to perish wretchedly;’Twere better nothing would begin.Thus everything that that your terms, sin,Destruction, evil represent—That is my proper element.

[Alexander von] Humboldt showers us with true treasures.

You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer

Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

If any wish to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

Yes! To this thought I hold with firm persistence; The last result of wisdom stamps it true; He only earns his freedom and existence Who daily conquers them anew.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

A person places themselves on a level with the ones they praise.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better than book or orator.

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him.

The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him, everybody sees them.

The thinker makes a great mistake when he asks after cause and effect. They both together make up the indivisible phenomenon.

The solution of every problem is another problem

Those that are firm in their will mold the world to themselves.

There is no patriotic art and no patriotic science

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

Oh God, how do the world and heavens confine themselves, when our hearts tremble in their own barriers!

All our knowledge is symbolic.

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

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.

Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.

What you feed in yourself that grows.

Choose well. Your choice is brief, and yet endless.

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

People should talk less and draw more. Personally, I would like to renounce speech altogether and, like organic nature, communicate everything I have to say visually.