[A] morning-land full of immeasurable hopes encircled him; he stripped his breast, threw himself all aglow into the dripping grass, washed (but not with any higher purpose than girls have) his firm face with liquid June-snow… – Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, Hesperus, or Forty-Five Dog-Post-Days: A Biography,

The barrenest of all mortals is the sentimentalist. – Thomas Carlyle, Sir Walter Scott, in London and Westminster Review, 12 November

But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps, millions, think. – Lord Byron, Don Juan, 1819

Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established. – Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888