Great Throughts Treasury

"Here take back the stuff that I am, nature, knead it back into the dough of being, make of me a bush, a cloud, whatever you will, even a man, only no longer make me me."

"Honest unaffected distrust of human abilities under all circumstances is the surest sign of strength of mind."

"I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies. The world needs such men more than Heaven does."

"I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too."

"I believe that man is in the last resort so free a being that his right to be what he believes himself to be cannot be contested."

"I forget the greater part of what I read, but all the same it nourishes my mind."

"I have clearly noticed that often I have one opinion when I lie down and another one when I stand up, especially when I have eaten little and when I am tired."

"I have remarked very clearly that I am often of one opinion when I am lying down and of another when I am standing up."

"I have written a good number of drafts and small reflections. They are not waiting for the last touch but for the sunlight to wake them up."

"I look upon book reviews as an infantile disease which new-born books are subject to."

"I would give something to know for precisely whom the deeds were really done, of which it is publicly stated they were done 'for the Fatherland'."

"Ideas too are a life and a world."

"If all else fails, the character of a man can be recognized by nothing so surely as by a jest which he takes badly."

"If all mankind were suddenly to practice honesty, many thousands of people would be sure to starve."

"If an angel were to tell us something of his philosophy, I do believe some of his propositions would sound like 2 x 2 = 13"

"If another Messiah was born he could hardly do so much good as the printing-press."

"If countries were named after the words you first hear when you go there, England would have to be called Damn It."

"If it is permissible to write plays that are not intended to be seen, I should like to see who can prevent me from writing a book no one can read."

"If it were true what in the end would be gained? Nothing but another truth. Is this such a mighty advantage? We have enough old truths still to digest, and even these we would be quite unable to endure if we did not sometimes flavor them with lies."

"If people should ever start to do only what is necessary millions would die of hunger."

"If the little bit you have is nothing special in itself, at least find a way of saying it that is a little bit special."

"If there were only turnips and potatoes in the world, someone would complain that plants grow the wrong way."

"If this is philosophy it is at any rate a philosophy that is not in its right mind."

"If we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient."

"If we make a couple of discoveries here and there we need not believe things will go on like this for ever... Just as we hit water when we dig in the earth, so we discover the incomprehensible sooner or later."

"If we thought more for ourselves we would have very many more bad books and very many more good ones."

"If you are going to build something in the air it is always better to build castles than houses of cards."

"Imagine what I'm after strange ignorance of beauty, but not, it happens that because you ignore beauty, I look strange."

"In each of us there is a little of all of us."

"In his Comedy, Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and yet as Herr Meinhard remarks, makes such ill use of him: clear proof that even in the days of Dante one praised the ancients without knowing why. This respect for poets one does not understand and yet wishes to equal is the source of the bad writing in our literature."

"It is a question whether, when we break a murderer on the wheel, we do not fall into the error a child makes when it hits the chair it has bumped into."

"It is a sure evidence of a good book if it pleases us more and more as we grow older."

"It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories."

"It is almost impossible to bear the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing somebody's beard."

"It is certainly not a matter of indifference whether I learn something without effort or finally arrive at it myself through my system of thought. In the latter case everything has roots, in the former it is merely superficial."

"It is hardly to be believed how spiritual reflections when mixed with a little physics can hold people's attention and give them a livelier idea of God than do the often ill-applied examples of his wrath."

"It is impossible to have bad taste, but many people have none at all."

"It is in the gift for employing all the vicissitudes of life to one's own advantage and to that of one's craft that a large part of genius consists."

"It is no great art to say something briefly when, like Tacitus, one has something to say; when one has nothing to say, however, and none the less writes a whole book and makes truth ... into a liar—that I call an achievement."

"It is said that truth comes from the mouths of fools and children: I wish every good mind which feels an inclination for satire would reflect that the finest satirist always has something of both in him."

"It is too bad if you have to do everything upon reflection and can't do anything from early habit."

"It is we who are the measure of what is strange and miraculous: if we sought a universal measure the strange and miraculous would not occur and all things would be equal."

"It is with epigrams as with other inventions: the best ones annoy us because we didn't think of them ourselves."

"It not seldom happens that in the purposeless ravings and wanderings of the imagination we hunt down such game as can be put to use by our purposeful philosophy in its well-ordered household."

"Judge men not by their opinions, but by what their opinions have made of them."

"Just as the performance of the vilest and most wicked deeds requires spirit and talent, so even the greatest demand a certain insensitivity which under other circumstances we would call stupidity."

"Just as there are polysyllabic words that say very little, so there are also monosyllabic words of infinite meaning."

"Just as we outgrow a pair of trousers, we outgrow acquaintances, libraries, principles, etc., at times before they're worn out and times - and this is the worst of all - before we have new ones."

"Knowledge of the means without an actual application, even without transfer and will to apply them, is what we now commonly called scholarship."

"Libraries can in general be too narrow or too wide for the soul."