"Taste is only to be educated by contemplation, not of the tolerably good but of the truly excellent. I therefore show you only the best works; and when you are grounded in these, you will have a standard for the rest, which you will know how to value, without overrating them."

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

"If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts."

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

"I do not speak of what I cannot praise."

"When you praise someone you call yourself his equal"

"If you 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."

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

"If the mass of people hesitate to act, strike with swiftly and with boldness, the brave heart that understands and seizes opportunity can everything."

"I've studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine -- and even, alas! Theology -- from end to end with labor keen; and here, poor fool with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before."

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

"When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be."

"This is the true measure of love: When we believe that we alone can love, that no one could ever have loved so before us, and that no one will ever love in the same way after us"

"It is delivery that makes the orators success."

"Nothing is true, but that which is simple."

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

"To understand one thing well is better than understanding many things by halves."

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

"No one would talk much in society, if he knew how often he misunderstands others"

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

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

"Stupidity is without anxiety."

"On the pinnacle of success man does not stand firm long."

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

"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."

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

"In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply."

"No one as ever completed their apprenticeship."

"Everywhere, we learn only from those whom we love."

"The happy do not believe in miracles"

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

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

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

"The people rate strength before everything."

"Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows."

"All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience."

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

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

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

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

"Without haste, but without rest."

"A person can stand almost anything except a succession of ordinary days."

"A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government."

"We can offer up much in the large, but to make sacrifices in little things is what we are seldom equal to."

"A person hears only what they understand."

"The decline in literature indicates a decline in the nation. The two keep pace in their downward tendency."

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation."

"A judge who cannot punish, in the end associates themselves with the criminal."

"A clever man commits no minor blunders."

"Nature understands no jesting. She is always true, always serious, always severe. She is always right, and the errors are always those of man."