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p.35/392. Book II, Chapter II.

Book 2, Chapter 1.

Book 1, Chapter 17.

Part 1, Chapter 16.

"We look upon our scholars," said the Overseer," as so many swimmers, who, in the element which threatened to swallow them, feel with astonishment that they are lighter, that it bears and carries them forward: and so it is with everything that man undertakes."

"Our principles are just a supplement to our peculiar manner of existence. We delight to clothe our errors in the garb of universal laws; to attribute them to irresistibly-appointed causes."

"A man is never happy till his vague striving has itself marked out its proper limitation."

"When we take people,' thou wouldst say, 'merely as they are, we make them worse; when we treat them as if they were what they should be, we improve them as far as they can be improved."

"He knew not that it is the manner of all persons who attach importance to their inward cultivation, altogether to neglect their outward circumstances. This had been Wilhelm's case: he now for the first time seemed to notice, that to work effectively, he stood in need of outward means."

"A worthy person by his very presence promises us much! The confidence which he elicits, the inclination he inspires, the hopes which he awakens are unbounded: he is, and he continues, in our debt, although he does not know it."

"With confidential narratives of pretty love-adventures, it often happens as with ghost-stories; when the first is told, the others follow of themselves."

"I scarcely remember a commandment; to me there is nothing that assumes the aspect of law; it is an impulse that leads me, and guides me always aright. I freely follow my emotions, and know as little of constraint as of repentance. God be praised that I know to Whom I am indebted for such happiness, and that I cannot think of it without humility!"

Οι ρομαντικοί θαύμαζαν αυτό το έργο όχι τόσο για την αφηγηματική του δύναμη, όσο για δύο εντελώς διαφορετικούς λόγους: εν πρώτοις, επειδή περιέγραφε την πορεία της αυταγωγής ενός μεγαλοφυούς ανθρώπου. Παράλληλα όμως, επειδή συντελούνταν σε αυτό μία σειρά από ορμητικές μεταβάσεις, λ.χ. από ένα κομμάτι νηφαλιου πεζού λόγου, σε εκστατικές, ποιητικές και λυρικές αφηγήσεις. (I. Berlin, Οι ρίζες του ρομαντισμού, σελ 177).

"With great surprise, he found his bed unoccupied; the sheets and pillows in the sleekest rest. He looked around; he searched, and searched, but found no traces of the rogue. Behind the bed, the stove, the drawers, there was nothing to be seen: he sought with great and greater diligence; a spiteful looker-on might have believed that he was seeking in the hope of finding."

The sum of our existence, divided by reason, never gives an integer number, but a surprising fraction is always left behind.

"The light of the understanding it is always in our power to reach; but this fulness of the heart no one can give us."

"The few glances I have cast over Shakspeare's world incite me , more than anything beside , to quicken my footsteps forward into the actual world , to mingle in the flood of destinies that is suspended over it."