Where there is politics or economics, there is no morality.

Imagination must first be filled to the point of saturation with life of every kind before the moment arrives when the friction of free sociability electrifies it to such an extent that the most gentle stimulus of friendly or hostile contact elicits from it lightning sparks, luminous flashes, or shattering blows.

The French Revolution, Fichte's Theory of Knowledge, and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister are the three greatest tendencies of the age. Whoever takes offence at this combination, and whoever does not consider a revolution important unless it is blatant and palpable, has not yet risen to the lofty and broad vantage point of the history of mankind.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

God is each truly and exalted thing, therefore the individual himself to the highest degree. But are not nature and the world individuals?

What is lost in the good or excellent translation is precisely the best.