From the midst of the flat plain of human reason, there arises the terrible, fire-spewing mountain of genius. - Constantin Brunner

And so, from this day forth, we want all the more to let our thoughts revolve around and hover over Socrates and Christ at all times, openly taking pride that they are more alive for us than all those living today and that we listen to and love them as we do none of the living.

Great, strong, spiritual love — which is always at the same time a genuine, unsentimental love of man — cannot be without wrath. … Anger can no more be separated from love than flame and heat can from fire. Love and anger are a single fire of the Spirit.

The difference between Christ and the other prophets is threefold:
1. Unlike the other prophets, he has no connection with politics and is not a people's tribune. In the Gospels, we find temporal circumstances only as background, Christ having no relationship to them at all. He kept his thoughts unmuddled by the world — "Get thee behind me, Satan!" — he was and remained truly free of the world. 2. He preaches no religious superficialities whatsoever, nothing at all of worship, nothing of God; he is truly godless. 3. Neither for earth nor heaven does he preach any coming kingdom. "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Mt. 6:33). The kingdom, however, is nothing that is to come; it is here, it is within you (Lk. 17:21). It is the Spirit of innerness as it is alive in him, the truly blessed man; it is the essence, ever being and never changing. It is also the essence of this our life, not merely an appendix granted it by some other essence, for which we would have to fulfill certain conditions.