As high as mind stands above nature, so high does the state stand above physical life. Man must therefore venerate the state as a secular deity.

It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: Is it true in and for itself?

The East knew and to the present day knows only that One is Free; the Greek and the Roman world, that some are free; the German World knows that All are free. The first political form therefore which we observe in History, is Despotism, the second Democracy and Aristocracy, the third, Monarchy.

The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant's existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom.

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.

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

The spirit is never at rest, but always engaged in progressive motion, giving itself new form.