Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.

It is not given to us to grasp the truth, which is identical with the divine, directly. We perceive it only in reflection, in example and symbol, in singular and related appearances. It meets us as a kind of life which is incomprehensible to us, and yet we cannot free ourselves from the desire to comprehend it.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.