The State is the coldest of all cold monsters.

When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconvenience he causes us very much against him.

The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.

The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of “eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book — what everyone else does not say in a book.

The shortest route is not the most direct one, but rather the one where the most favorable winds swell our sails:Mthat is the lesson that seafarers teach. Not to abide by this lesson is to be obstinate: here, firmness of character is tainted with stupidity.

People who wish to numb our caution in dealing with them by means of flattery are employing a dangerous expedient, like a sleeping draught, which, if it does not put us to sleep, keeps us all the more awake.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.