Virtue is reason which has become energy.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

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.

Wit as an instrument of revenge is as infamous as art is as a means of sensual titillation.

Mysteries are feminine; they like to veil themselves but still want to be seen and divined.

He who does not become familiar with nature through love will never know her.

Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is this public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.