Not death itself, but only the moral preparation for it, holds terrors.

There is no point asserting and reasserting what the heart cannot believe.

[He] understood the people in a new way...The people is not everyone who speaks our language, nor yet the elect marked by the fiery stamp of genius. Not by birth, not by the work of one's hands, not by the wings of education is one elected into the people. But by one's inner self. Everyone forges his inner self year after year. One must try to temper, to cut, to polish one's soul so as to become a human being. And thereby become a tiny particle of one's own people.

... the inexorable lesson of centuries: suffering must be borne; there is no way out.

The most intense patriotism always flourishes in the rear.

Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them

People who are at ease with their consciences always look happy.