You're lovely as a flower, So pure and fair to see; I look at you, and sadness Comes stealing over me. - Heinrich Heine

Do not smile at my advice -- the advice of a dreamer who warns you against Kantians, Fichteans, and philosophers of nature. Do not smile at the visionary who anticipates the same revolution in the realm of the visible as has taken place in the spiritual. Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder. German thunder is of true Germanic character; it is not very nimble, but rumbles along ponderously. Yet, it will come and when you hear a crashing such as never before has been heard in the world's history, then you know that the German thunderbolt has fallen at last. At that uproar the eagles of the air will drop dead, and lions in the remotest deserts of Africa will hide in their royal dens. A play will be performed in Germany which will make the French Revolution look like an innocent idyll.

Christianity is an idea, and as such is indestructible and immortal, like every idea.

Das ist schön bei den Deutschen: Keiner ist so verrückt, dass er nicht einen noch Verrückteren fände, der ihn versteht.