Ideas devour the ages as men are devoured by their passions. When man is cured, human nature will cure itself perhaps.

Power is action; the electoral principle is discussion. No political action is possible when discussion is permanently established.

To live in the presence of great truths and eternal laws, to be led by permanent ideals - that is what keeps a man patient when the world ignores him, and calm and unspoiled when the world praises him.

The wounds of self-love turn incurable when the oxide of self-love gets into them.

When an intelligent man reaches the point of inviting self-explanation and offers surrendering the key to his heart, he is assuredly riding a drunken horse.

Men are so made that they can resist sound argument, and yet yield to a glance.

Genius is answerable only to itself; it is the sole judge of the means, since it alone knows the end; thus genius must consider itself as above the law, for it is the task of genius to remake the law; moreover the man who frees himself from his time and place may take everything, hazard everything, for everything is his by right.