All our contemporary philosophers perhaps without knowing it are looking through eyeglasses that Baruch Spinoza polished. Spinoza was a philosopher who earned his livelihood by grinding lenses.

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.

First, I thought, almost despairing, This must crush my spirit now; Yet I bore it, and am bearing- Only do not ask me how.

I wept in my dreams. I dreamed you lay in the grave; I awoke, and the tears still poured down my cheeks. I wept in my dreams, I dreamed you had left me; I awoke and I went on weeping long and bitterly. I wept in my dreams, I dreamed you were still kind to me; I awoke, and still the flow of my tears streams on.

She resembles the Venus de Milo: she is very old, has no teeth, and has white spots on her yellow skin.

Genius: 1. to believe your own thought. To believe that what is true for you is ultimately true. 2. a sledgehammer. 3. the fruit of labour and thought. 4. soul. 5. the ability to put into effect what is in your mind. 6. something one can become.

Those who begin by burning books will end by burning people.