The heart-throb for the welfare of humanity therefore passes into the ravings of an insane self-conceit, into the fury of consciousness to preserve itself from destruction; and it does this by expelling from itself the perversion which it is itself, and by striving to look on it and express it as something else.

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is no hero, but because the valet is a valet.

When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses.

Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.

The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

To him who looks at the world rationally the world looks rationally back.