The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many. - Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

It is manifest that behind the so-called curtain which is supposed to conceal the inner world, there is nothing to be seen unless we go behind it ourselves, as much in order that we may see, as that there may be something behind there which can be seen.

A boy throws stones into the stream, and then looks with wonder at the circles which follow in the water, regarding them as a result in which he sees something of his own doing. This human need runs through the most varied phenomena up to that particular form of self-reproduction in the external fact which is presented us in human art. And it is not merely in relation to external objects that man acts thus. He treats himself, that is, his natural form, in similar manner: he will not permit it to remain as he finds it; he alters it deliberately. This is the rational grounds of all ornament and decoration, though it may be as barbarous, tasteless, entirely disfiguring, nay, as injurious as the crushing of the feet of Chinese ladies, or the slitting of ears and lips.

Die Eule der Minerva beginnt erst mit der einbrechenden Dämmerung ihren Flug.