Gold is the gift of vanity and common pride, but flowers are the gift of love and friendship.

The spirit of poetry combines the profundity of the philosopher and the child's delight in bright pictures.

As far as the arts and the sciences are concerned, the German mind appreciates most highly that which it does not understand of the latter, and that which it does not enjoy of the former.

Christianity is the religion of melancholy and hypochondria. Islam, on the other hand, promotes apathy, and Judaism instills its adherents with a certain choleric vehemence, the heathen Greeks may well be called happy optimists.

Mankind is getting smarter every day. Actually, it only seems so. At least we are making progress. We're progressing, to be sure, ever more deeply into the forest.

Strength, strength alone, is honorable, the German nation clamors in its majesty. But since it is hard to muster strength so suddenly, they have to make do with boorishness.

No shortcomings of other people cause us to be more intolerant than those which are caricatures of our own.