There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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.’

Der Handelnde ist immer gewissenlos; es hat niemand Gewissen als der Betrachtende.

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.