Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help.

Mere goodness can achieve little against the power of nature.

Mark this well, you proud men of action! you are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.

It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in Providence, than to see their real import and value.

I'm not ugly, but my beauty is a total creation.

Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it.

Genuine tragedies in the world are not conflicts between right and wrong. They are conflicts between two rights.

Education is the art of making man ethical.

The learner always begins by finding fault, but the scholar sees the positive merit in everything.

An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think.

Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.

Animals are in possession of themselves; their soul is in possession of their body. But they have no right to their life, because they do not will it.

The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.

Once the state has been founded, there can no longer be any heroes. They come on the scene only in uncivilized conditions.

To him who looks upon the world rationally, the world in its turn presents a rational aspect. The relation is mutual.