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

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.

When Philosophy with its abstractions paints grey in grey, the freshness and life of youth has gone, the reconciliation is not a reconciliation in the actual, but in the ideal world.

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.

I have the courage to be mistaken.

The nature of finite things is to have the seed of their passing-away as their essential being: the hour of their birth is the hour of their death.

The State is the absolute reality and the individual himself has objective existence, truth and morality only in his capacity as a member of the State.