I ceased in the year 1764 to believe that one can convince one’s opponents with arguments printed in books. It is not to do that, therefore, that I have taken up my pen, but merely so as to annoy them, and to bestow strength and courage on those on our own side, and to make it known to the others that they have not convinced us.

The ordinary man is ruined by the flesh lusting against the spirit; the scholar by the spirit lusting too much against the flesh.

I made the journey to knowledge like dogs who go for walks with their masters, a hundred times forward and backward over the same territory; and when I arrived I was tired.

To write brashly about some things, it is almost necessary not to know much about them.

I am convinced we do not only love ourselves in others but hate ourselves in others too.

I would give something to know for whose sake precisely those deeds were really done which report says were done for the fatherland.

The course of the seasons is a piece of clockwork, with a cuckoo to call when it is spring.