The proofs of the existence of God are to such an extent fallen into discredit that they pass for something antiquated, belonging to days gone by.

War is progress, peace is stagnation.

People who are too fastidious towards the finite never reach actuality, but linger in abstraction, and their light dies away.

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.

When we walk the streets at night in safety, it does not strike us that this might be otherwise. This habit of feeling safe has become second nature, and we do not reflect on just how this is due solely to the working of special institutions. Commonplace thinking often has the impression that force holds the state together, but in fact its only bond is the fundamental sense of order which everybody possesses.

The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.

Africa has no history and did not contribute to anything that mankind enjoyed.