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.

Someone who is reluctant to say what he needs to say, often ends up doing so with an insolence whose crassness is proportionate tohis fear, once he gathers the necessary courage.

Caution is the daughter of circumspection, but she tends to outgrow her mother.

Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.

Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock asnot going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch's greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.

A man may welcome his beloved with circumstance, but a woman's love and her concern for his well-being are discreet.

The courts used to be, fair and square, the avengers of secular crimes; but nowadays they demand respect even for the criminal.