That strengthened me in my purpose, in future to rely on nature alone. It alone is infinitely rich, and it alone forms the great artist.

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.

I love that author best in whom I recognize my own world, for whom things happen as they do around me, and whose story becomes for me as interesting and after my heart as my own domestic life, which is, of course, no paradise, but on the whole a source of unutterable blessedness.

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,

If we are to participate in a phenomenon of nature, must one always toil away at it?

the happiest people are those who like children live for the day,

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.

grown-ups too tumble around like children on the face of earth, not knowing where they come from or where they are going,