“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."(Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)”

“Yes, one is on the right track when one does not know what one is thinking when one is thinking; everything is handed to one, as it were.”

“Please send me your last pair of shoes, worn out with dancing as you mentioned in your letter, so that I might have something to press against my heart.”

“Everything transitory is but an image.”

“The deed is everything; the fame is nothing.”

“So much simplicity with so much understanding — so mild, and yet so resolute — a mind so placid, and a life so active.”

“Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.”