“Thinking is, indeed, essentially the negation of that which is before us.”

The owl of Minerva begins its flight only with the coming of the dusk.

Devotion – a state of mind in which it refuses to occupy itself any longer with the limited and particular.

Art is the sensuous presentation of ideas.

History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in it are the blank pages of history.

History teaches us that man learns nothing from history.

Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not only as Substance, but equally as Subject.

Nothing great in the world was accomplished without passion.

Commending myself to your kind memories, I wish you pleasant holidays.

We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

Education in its early stages always begins with fault-finding, but when it is complete, it sees the positive element in everything.

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

The very fact that something is determined as a limitation implies that the limitation is already transcended.

No man is a hero to his valet. This is not because the hero is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history.

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

History in general is therefore the development of Spirit in Time, as Nature is the development of the Idea is Space.

He whose book of the heart has been opened needs no other books.

Do not pursue what should be, but understand what is.

He who goes to the bottom of his own heart knows his own nature; And knowing his own nature, he knows heaven.

Evil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else.

Ah, the prayers of the millions, how they must fight and destroy each other on their way to the throne of God.

Incessant falls teach men to reform, and distress rouses their strength. Life springs from calamity, and death from ease.

When two people meet, each one is changed by the other so you’ve got two new people.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.