“Men grieve [Mephistopheles] so with the days of their lamenting, [he] even hate[s] to plague them with [his] torments.”

“Insofar as he makes use of his healthy senses, man himself is the best and most exact scientific instrument possible. The greatest misfortune of modern physics is that its experiments have been set apart from man, as it were, physics refuses to recognize nature in anything not shown by artificial instruments, and even uses this as a measure of its accomplishments.”

“When he comes to the doorhe always looks mocking and half-way angry.You can see he has sympathy for nothing.It's written on his foreheadthat he can love no one.”

“Ah! două suflete-s în mine! Cum se zbatÎn piept să nu mai locuiască împreună! Unul de lumestrâns mă ţine, încleştat; cu voluptate, celălaltputernic către cereşti limanuri mă îndrumă.”

“Through many a long day you'll be taught That what you once did without thinking, As easy as if it were eating or drinking, Must be done in order: one! two! three! But truly, this though factory of ours Is like some weaver's masterpiece: One treadle stirs a thousand threads, This way and that the shuttles whistle, Threads flow invisibly, one ... Read morestroke Ties a thousand knots .... The philosopher steps in And proves to you it had to be so; The first was so, the second was so, And therefore the third and fourth were so. If the first and second hadn't existed, The third and fourth would never have existed. And this is praised by every scholar, But never a one becomes a weaver. To know and describe a living thing You first get rid of all its spirit: Then the parts are all in the palm of your hand, And all that you lack is the spirit that binds them! Encheiresis naturae, chemists call it, And fool themselves and never know it”

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

“Publishers are all cohorts of the devil; there must be a special hell for them somewhere.”