Whoever does not philosophize for the sake of philosophy, but rather uses philosophy as a means, is a sophist.

The obsession with moderation is the spirit of castrated narrow-mindedness.

We should never invoke the spirit of antiquity as our authority. Spirits are peculiar things; they cannot be grasped with the hands and be held up before others. Spirits reveal themselves only to spirits. The most direct and concise method would be, in this case as well, to prove the possession of the only redeeming faith by good works.

When the author has no idea of what to reply to a critic, he then likes to say: you could not do it better anyway. This is the same as if a dogmatic philosopher reproached a skeptic for not being able to devise a system.

Art and works of art do not make an artist; sense and enthusiasm and instinct do.

Man is a creative retrospection of nature upon itself.

There is no self-knowledge but an historical one. No one knows what he himself is who does not know his fellow men, especially the most prominent one of the community, the master's master, the genius of the age.