“Whatever lives, lives to die in sorrow. We engage our hearts, and grasp after the things of this world, only to undergo the pang of losing them.”

The voice of the majority is no proof of justice.

Accursed be he who plays with the devil.

I follow my heart, for I can trust it.

I know that we often tremble at an empty terror; yet the false fancy brings a real misery.

Great souls endure in silence.

He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.

When you are not happy with your life, always think that someone is happy simply because you exist.

The game of life looks cheerful when one carries a treasure safe in his heart.

Death is a mighty mediator. There all the flames of rage are extinguished, hatred is appeased, and angelic pity, like a weeping sister, bends with gentle and close embrace over the funeral urn.

Many a smiling face hides a mourning heart; but grief alone teaches us what we are.

There is no solitude in nature.

Nothing leads to good that is not natural.

We must bear what Heaven sends.

Friends show me what I can do, foes teach me what I should do.

The history of the world is the world’s court of justice.

Not without a shudder may the human hand reach into the mysterious urn of destiny.

Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good.

Never abandon life. There is a way out of everything except death.

Everyone may be called “comrade,” but some comrades have the power of life and death over other comrades.

People living deeply have no fear of death.

Death comes for us all in the end.

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.

Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.

It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous, even death is terrible only if we fear it.