What have you done, wretch!

What I regret is that he often speaks of matters he has only heard or read about, and always from the point of view that someone has presented to him.

Of course, since we are so made that we compare everything with ourselves and ourselves with everything, happiness or misery lies in the objects we associate ourselves with, and in this there is nothing more dangerous than solitude.

Heaven and earth and their weaving forces about me: I see nothing but an eternally devouring, eternally cud-chewing monster.

how not a moment of her time passes without active loving, without work, and yet her cheerfulness and good humor have never left her.

Woe to those, I said, who use the power they have over a heart to rob it of the simple joys that swell up out of that heart.

Thus the most restless vagabond longs at last for his home country and finds in his hut, on his spouse’s breast, in the circle of his children, in the tasks of supporting them the bliss that he sought in the wide world in vain.

Oh, distance is like the future! An enormous glimmering oneness lies before our soul, our feeling blurs in it along with our eyes, and we long to let go of our whole being, to let ourselves be filled with all the bliss of a single great, glorious feeling.—But alas! When we hasten there, when there becomes here, everything is as it was, and we stand

It is natural, when a misfortune or something dreadful surprises us in the midst of enjoyment, that it makes a stronger impression on us than otherwise,