History is not the soil of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.

In history an additional result is commonly produced by human actions beyond that which they aim at and obtain -- that which they immediately recognize and desire. They gratify their own interest; but something further is thereby accomplished, latent in the actions in question, though not present to their consciousness, and not included in their design.

God is, as it were, the sewer into which all contradictions flow.

Propounding peace and love without practical or institutional engagement is delusion, not virtue.

Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.