Meistens belehrt uns erst der Verlust über den Wert der Dinge. - Arthur Schopenhauer

After your death, you will be what you were before your birth.

A man shows his character just in the way in which he deals with trifles — -for then he is off his guard.

Authors can be divided into meteors, planets and fixed stars. The meteors produce a loud momentary effect; we look up, shout 'see there!' and then they are gone for ever. The planets and comets last for a much longer time....The fixed stars alone are constant and unalterable; their position in the firmament is fixed; they have their own light and are at all times active, because they do not alter their appearance through a change in our standpoint, for they have no parallax. Unlike the others, they do not belong to one system (nation) alone, but to the world. But just because they are situated so high, their light usually requires many years before it becomes visible to the inhabitatns of earth.