I consider it a degradation and a stain on my honor to submit to baptism in order to qualify myself for state employment in Prussia.

Where books are burnt, men finish up being burnt too.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

He who fights with priests may make up his mind to have his poor good name torn and befouled by the most infamous lies and the most cutting slanders.

The foolish race of mankind are swarming below in the night; they shriek and rage and quarrel - and all of them are right.

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers.

Immortality—dazzling idea! who first imagined thee! Was it some jolly burgher of Nuremburg, who with night-cap on his head, and white clay pipe in mouth, sat on some pleasant summer evening before his door, and reflected in all his comfort, that it would be right pleasant, if, with unextinguishable pipe, and endless breath, he could thus vegetate onwards for a blessed eternity? Or was it a lover, who in the arms of his loved one, thought the immortality-thought, and that because he could think and feel naught beside!—Love! Immortality!