Having a talent is not enough: one must also have your permission to have it--right, my friends?

The consequence is that every man comes to know himself solely in terms of his power for defence and attack.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.

That the world is not the embodiment of an eternal rationality can be conclusively proved by the fact that the piece of the worldthat we know--I mean our human reason--is not so very rational. And if it is not eternally and completely wise and rational, then the rest of the world will not be either; here the conclusion a minori ad majus, a parte ad totum applies, and does so with decisive force.

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

I welcome all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour!