The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

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

The human mind will not be confined to any limits.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Love can do much, but duty more.

There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From its springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior.

There is nothing in which people more betray their character than in what they laugh at.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.

He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy.

On all the peaks lies peace.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

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

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

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

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

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

If you start to think of your physical and moral condition, you usually find that you are sick.

Personality is everything in art and poetry.

It is after all the greatest art to limit and isolate oneself.

I call architecture frozen music.

To rule is easy, to govern difficult.

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

The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art.

Sowing is not as difficult as reaping.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

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

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

A creation of importance can only be produced when its author isolates himself, it is a child of solitude.

It is not doing the thing we like to do, but liking the thing we have to do, that makes life blessed.

Know thyself? If I knew myself I would run away.

If a man or woman is born ten years sooner or later, their whole aspect and performance shall be different.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Piety is not a goal but a means to attain through the purest peace of mind the highest culture.

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

Devote each day to the object then in time and every evening will find something done.

There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

The coward only threatens when he is safe.

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

One must ask children and birds how cherries and strawberries taste.

Every spoken word arouses our self-will.

Trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

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

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles.

Few people have the imagination for reality.

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

Nothing shows a man’s character more than what he laughs at.

Men show their character in nothing more clearly than what they think laughable.

He who does not think much of himself is much more esteemed than he imagines.

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity.

Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest.

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

What by a straight path cannot be reached by crooked ways is never won.

Talent develops in quiet places, character in the full current of human life.

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

Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

Beauty is a manifestation of secret natural laws, which otherwise would have been hidden from us forever.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

It is better to be deceived by one’s friends than to deceive them.

Nature knows no pause in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.

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

Love and desire are the spirit’s wings to great deeds.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

We are never further from what we wish than when we believe that we have what we wished for.

We will burn that bridge when we come to it.

Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.

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

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

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

In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

A correct answer is like an affectionate kiss.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Plunge boldly into the thick of life, and seize it where you will, it is always interesting.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

What is my life if I am no longer useful to others.

The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Be above it! Make the world serve your purpose, but do not serve it.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

To create something you must be something.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Every author in some way portrays himself in his works, even if it be against his will.

Girls we love for what they are; young men for what they promise to be.

Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is?

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.

Go to foreign countries and you will get to know the good things one possesses at home.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

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

The biggest problem with every art is by the use of appearance to create a loftier reality.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

I think that I am better than the people who are trying to reform me.

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

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

Every person above the ordinary has a certain mission that they are called to fulfill.

It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

One cannot develop taste from what is of average quality but only from the very best.

Mastery passes often for egotism.

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

Age merely shows what children we remain.

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

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

If I love you, what business is it of yours?

Character, in great and little things, means carrying through what you feel able to do.

Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent.

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

Nothing is worth more than this day.

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

Certain defects are necessary for the existence of individuality.

If your treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

Upon the creatures we have made, we are, ourselves, at last, dependent.

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

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

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

Unlike grown ups, children have little need to deceive themselves.

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

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

A useless life is an early death.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.

The little man is still a man.

An unused life is an early death.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

The people who are absent are the ideal; those who are present seem to be quite commonplace.

Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.

Superstition is the poetry of life.

Those who hope for no other life are dead even for this.

Precaution is better than cure.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

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

Life is the childhood of our immortality.

We always have time enough, if we will but use it aright.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.

The world remains ever the same.

Every day we should hear at least one little song, read one good poem, see one exquisite picture, and, if possible, speak a few sensible words.

A man’s manners are a mirror in which he shows his portrait.

The unnatural, that too is natural.

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

We don’t get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

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

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

When ideas fail, words come in very handy.

A person hears only what they understand.

In art the best is good enough.

To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods.

Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own.

Great thoughts and a pure heart, that is what we should ask from God.

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

Music is either sacred or secular. The sacred agrees with its dignity, and here has its greatest effect on life, an effect that remains the same through all ages and epochs. Secular music should be cheerful throughout.

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.

Character is formed in the stormy billows of the world.

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

Live dangerously and you live right.

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

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

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

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

I will listen to anyone’s convictions, but pray keep your doubts to yourself.

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

Science arose from poetry… when times change the two can meet again on a higher level as friends.

No one has ever learned fully to know themselves.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone.

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

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

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.

All things are only transitory.

He who has a task to perform must know how to take sides, or he is quite unworthy of it.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

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