“You at -all things considered- what you are. Put on your head perukes with myriad curls, stalk about on foot-high stilts, still what you are, you must always remain.”

“What you inherit from your fathermust first be earned before it's yours.”

“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”

“We all walk in mysteries. We are surrounded by an atmosphere about which we still know nothing at all.”

“We're only really thinking when we can't think out fully what we are really thinking about!”

“If you treat an individual as he is, he will remain how he is. But if you treat him as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.”

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.”