Mankind is made great or little by its own will. - Friedrich Schiller

One people will we be, — a band of brothers; No danger, no distress shall sunder us. We will be freemen as our fathers were, And sooner welcome death than live as slaves. We will rely on God's almighty arm, And never quail before the power of man.

Man, one may say, was never in such a completely animal condition; but he has, on the other hand, never escaped from it.

They have founded the whole structure of their happiness on these very illusions, which ought to be combated and dissipated by the light of knowledge, and they would think they were paying too dearly for a truth which begins by robbing them of all that has value in their sight. It would be necessary that they should be already sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him to whom philosophy owes its name.