Erklärungsnot

“If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections, and to destroy your taste for those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic affections, Greece had not been enslaved; Caesar would have spared his country; America would have been discovered more gradually; and the empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed”

“My parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights which we enjoyed.”

“Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit, that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures”

I spoke of my desire of finding a friend—of my thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever fallen to my lot; and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of little happiness, who did not enjoy this blessing.

“I often feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding.”

“I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind.”

“for nothing contributes so much to tranquillise the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.”

“Por qué aumentar con las guerras nuestros pesares si la vida nos reserva tantas aflicciones.”

“Logro, además, mirar el noticiero de la televisión y enterarme del curso de las barbaridades perpetradas por los hombres en diferentes lugares del planeta. La estadía en el hospital me ha vuelto más sensible al sufrimiento de la gente. Contemplo con horror las imágenes de niños mutilados, de mujeres llorando, de heridos, de muertos y de poblaciones hambrientas obligadas a huir caminando días enteros para escapar de las masacres.”