It is only when one is thoroughly true that there can be purity and freedom. Falsehood always punishes itself..

I have been young and am now old, and have not yet known an untruthful man to come to a good end..

Gratitude is a soil on which joy thrives..

When you have discovered a stain in yourself, you eagerly seek for and gladly find stains in others..

Imagination is the mightiest despot..

The silver-leaved birch retains in its old age a soft bark; there are some such men..

The vain being is the really solitary being..

Solitude has a healing consoler, friend, companion: it is work..

Only he is free who cultivates his own thoughts and strives without fear to do justice to them..

Years teach us more than books..

If you sound great in the practice room, you're practicing the wrong thing. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life..

What will people say-in these words lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds.….

With hat in hand, one gets on in the world..

Some men, like modern shops, hang everything in their show windows; when one goes inside, nothing is to be found..

Liberty is from God; liberties, from the devil..

He who, to be happy, needs nothing but himself, is happy..

Our second mother, habit, is also a good mother..

In Nature there is no dirt, everything is in the right condition; the swamp and the worm, as well as the grass and the bird,-all is there for itself..

We hear the rain fall, but not the snow. Bitter grief is loud, calm grief is silent..

The world is the same everywhere..

Of all afflictions, the worst is self contempt..