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

To hard necessity ones will and fancy must conform.

The world remains ever the same.

Behavior is the mirror in which everyone shows their image.

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

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Live dangerously and you live right.

Character develops itself in the stream of life.

Love does not dominate; it cultivates.

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

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

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

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

Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.

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

I love those who yearn for the impossible.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

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

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

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

Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste.

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

On all the peaks lies peace.

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

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

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

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

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

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

Being brilliant is no great feat if you respect nothing.

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

Precaution is better than cure.

What life half gives a man, posterity gives entirely.

Talk well of the absent whenever you have the opportunity.

Nothing is worth more than this day.

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

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

Correction does much, but encouragement does more.