"As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant."

"You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole: nothing is inside and nothing is outside, for what is within is without. Make haste, then, to grasp this holy mystery which is public knowledge.Rejoice in the true illusion, in the serious game: no living thing is a unity, it is always manifold."

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

"Colors are light's suffering and joy."

"We will burn that bridge when we come to it."

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

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it."

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

"Nothing is more fearful than imagination without taste."

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

"I've often heard it said, a preacherMight learn, with a comedian for a teacher."

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

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

"Few people have the imagination for reality."

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

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

"I will say nothing... against the course of my existence. But at bottom it has been nothing but pain and burden, and I can affirm that during the whole of my 75 years, I have not had four weeks of genuine well-being. It is but the perpetual rolling of a rock that must be raised up again forever."

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

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

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

"He'd have improved if you'd not givenHim a mere glimmer of the light in heaven;He calls it Reason, and it has only increasedHis power to be beastlier than a beast."

"To witness two lovers is a spectacle for the gods."

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

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

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

"For in music there is no material to be deducted."

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

"There you have it! - How they anticipate my wishes, how they grant friendship's little attentions, which are worth a thousand times more than breathtaking presents that merely prove the giver's vanity and humiliate us."

"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."

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

"The mediator of the inexpressible is the work of art."

"Character develops itself in the stream of life."

"It seems it has been my fate to sadden those I should have made happy."

"The human mind will not be confined to any limits."

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

"Love can do much, but duty more."

"Precaution is better than cure."

"Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own."

"The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving."

"Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare piA1 liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertA eterna."

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

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

"Whilst I could not think of any man whose spirit was, or needed to be, more enlarged than the spirit of a genuine merchant. What a thing it is to see the order which prevails throughout his business! By means of this he can at any time survey the general whole, without needing to perplex himself in the details. What advantages does he derive from the system of book-keeping by double entry? It is among the finest inventions of the human mind; every prudent master of a house should introduce it into his economy."

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

"We are all pilgrims who seek Italy."

"If any man 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."

"I love those who yearn for the impossible."

"Everything is hard before it is easy."

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

"If you've never eaten while crying you don t know what life tastes like."