The German national character is a favorite subject of character experts, probably because the less mature a nation, the more she is an object of criticism and not of history.

In the ancients, one sees the accomplished letter of entire poetry: in the moderns, one has the presentiment of the spirit in becoming.

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.

Philosophy still moves too much straight ahead, and is not yet cyclical enough.

A so-called happy marriage corresponds to love as a correct poem to an improvised song.

A good preface must be the root and the square of the book at the same time.

Both in their origins and effects, boredom and stuffy air resemble each other. They are usually generated whenever a large number of people gather together in a closed room.