Terrible as is war, it yet displays the spiritual grandeur of man daring to defy his mightiest hereditary enemy--death.

Life is all too wondrous sweet, and the world is so beautifully bewildered; it is the dream of an intoxicated divinity.

In action, the English have the advantage enjoyed by free men always entitled to free discussion: of having a ready judgment on every question. We Germans, on the other hand, are always thinking. We think so much that we never form a judgment.

A blaspheming Frenchman is a spectacle more pleasing to the Lord than a praying Englishman.

Mine is a most peaceable disposition. My wishes are: a humble cottage with a thatched roof, but a good bed, good food, the freshest milk and butter, flowers before my window, and a few fine trees before my door; and if God wants to make my happiness complete, he will grant me the joy of seeing some six or seven of my enemies hanging from those trees. Before death I shall, moved in my heart, forgive them all the wrong they did me in their lifetime. One must, it is true, forgive one's enemies-- but not before they have been hanged.

Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned.

I do not murmur, even if my heart break.