“Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.”

“God save you, my brethren, with all your -isms and schisms! I am a citizen of the world, and a man of Weimer. I have established myself by culture in this choice society; and if anyone knows a better place, let him go to it.”

“Hold your powers together for something good and let everything go that is for you without result and is not suited to you.”

“A lovely, pure, noble, and most moral nature, without the strength of nerve which forms a hero, sinks beneath a burden which it cannot bear, and must not cast away. All duties are holy for him; the present is too hard. Impossibilities have been required of him; not in themselves impossibilities, but such for him. He winds, and turns, and torments himself; he advances and recoils, is ever put in mind, ever puts himself in mind; at last does all but lose his purpose from his thoughts; yet still without recovering his peace of mind.”

“Like star that shines afar, slowly now, and without rest, let each man turn with steady sway, around the task that rules the day, and do his best.”

“We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

“The town itself is disagreeable; but then, all around, you find an inexpressible beauty of nature.”