In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.

Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed!

Anyone who has looked deeply into the world may guess how much wisdom lies in the superficiality of men. The instinct that preserves them teaches them to be flighty light, and false.

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

Your enemy shall ye seek; your war shall ye wage, and for the sake of your thoughts! And if your thoughts succumb, your uprightness shall still shout triumph thereby!

People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.

Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture.