Against great advantages in another, there are no means of defending ourselves except love.

The shudder of awe is humanity's highest faculty,
Even though this world is forever altering its values.

CHORUS
Gird thee for the high endeavor;
Shun the crowd's ignoble ease!
Fails the spirit never,
Wise to think, and prompt to seize.
Goethe, Faust, Part II, act 1, 50 -- 53.

There is no surer method of evading the world than by following Art and no surer method of linking oneself to it than by Art.

Excellence is rarely found, more rarely valued.

I prefer an injurious truth to a useful error. Truth heals any pain it may inflict on us.

A man's errors are what make him amiable.

No one feels himself easy in a garden which does not look like the open country.

Because everyone uses language to talk, everyone thinks he can talk about language.

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

The right man is the one who seizes the moment.

There are men who never err, because they never propose anything rational.

Legislators and revolutionaries who promise both equality and liberty are visionaries and charlatans.

Beware of wishing for anything in youth, because you will get it in middle age.

The society of women is the element of good manners.

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

The spirit from which we act is the principal matter.

The wealth that cannot be administered is a burden.

The one who acts is always without conscience; nobody has a conscience but the contemplative person.

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