Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.

Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized--the question involuntarily arises--to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.

Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me

The sublime in art is the attempt to express the infinite without finding in the realm of phenomena any object which proves itself fitting for this representation.

To be independent of public opinion is the first formal condition of achieving anything great.

Nothing great has been and nothing great can be accomplished without passion. It is only a dead, too often, indeed, a hypocriticalmoralizing which inveighs against the form of passion as such.

The valor that struggles is better than the weakness that endures.