The poet should seize the Particular, and he should, if there be anything sound in it, thus represent the Universal.

The world is so great and rich, and life so full of variety, that you can never lack occasions for poems.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

There is repetition everywhere, and nothing is found only once in the world.

A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government.

What is the freedom of the most free? To do what is right!

We accept every person in the world as that for which he gives himself out, only he must give himself out for something. We can put up with the unpleasant more easily than we can endure the insignificant.

The art of governing is a great metier, requiring the whole man, and it is therefore not well for a ruler to have too strong tendencies for other affairs.

To appear at church every Sunday; to look down upon, and let himself be looked at for an hour by the congregation, is the best means of becoming popular which can be recommended to a young sovereign.

As soon as any one belongs to a narrow creed in science, every unprejudiced and true perception is gone.