d besides the fructifying grain,
he employs also the rending thunder and lightning to purify the
atmosphere.

I must root out the stumps and trunks, and I am a rough woodsman who
must break the road and prepare it: but Magister Philip [Melanchthon]
goes on quietly and gently, plows and plants, sows and waters
joyfully.

Be temperate with your children; punish them if they lie or steal, but
be just in what you do. It is a lighter sin to take pears and apples
than to take money. I shudder when I think what I went through myself.
My mother beat me about some nuts once till the blood came. I had a
terrible time of it; but she meant well.

Never be hard with children. Many a fine character has been ruined by
the stupid brutality of pedagogs. The parts of speech are a boy's
pillory. I was myself flogged fifteen times in one forenoon, over the
conjugation of a verb. Punish if you must; but be kind too, and let
the sugar-plum go with the rod.

My being such a small creature was a misfortune for the Pope. He
despised me too much. What, he thought, could a slave like me do to
him--to him who was the greatest man in the world? Had he accepted my
proposal he would have extinguished me.

The better a man is, the more clearly he sees how little he is good
for, and the greater mockery it is to him to hold the notion that he
has deserved reward. Miserable creatures that we are, we earn our
bread in sin. Till we are seven years old, we do nothing but eat and
drink and sleep and play; from seven to twenty-one we study four hours
a day, the rest of it we run about and amuse ourselves; then we work
till fifty, and then we grow again to be children. We sleep half our
lives; we give God a tenth of our time; and yet we think that with our
good works we can merit heaven. What have I been doing to-day? I have
talked for two hours, I have been at meals three hours, I have been
idle four hours; ah, enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord!

The principle of marriage runs through all creation, and flowers as
well as animals are male and female.

If a man could make a single rose, we should give him an empire; yet
roses, and flowers no less beautiful, are scattered in profusion over
the world, and no one regards them.

GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM

LESSING

Born in 1729, died in 1781; studied theology at Leipsic, but
turned his thoughts to writing for the stage, his first
comedy being produced in 1748; settled in Berl