If we go on to cast a look at the fate of these World-Historical persons, whose vocation it was to be the agents of the World-Spirit, we shall find it to have been no happy one. They attained no calm enjoyment; their whole life was labour and trouble; their whole nature was nought else but their master—passion. When their object is attained they fall off like empty hulls from the kernel. They die early, like Alexander; they are murdered, like Caesar.

Philosophy is by its nature something esoteric, neither made for the mob nor capable of being prepared for the mob.

All education is the art of making men ethical (sittlich), of transforming the old Adam into the new Adam.

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

What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational. On this conviction the plain man like the philosopher takes his stand,and from it philosophy starts in its study of the universe of mind as well as the universe of nature.

In the case of various kinds of knowledge, we find that what in former days occupied the energies of men of mature mental ability sinks to the level of information, exercises, and even pastimes for children; and in this educational progress we can see the history of the world's culture delineated in faint outline.

What history teaches us is that neither nations nor governments ever learn anything from it.