A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.
The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you need to seduce the senses to it.
The thirst for equality can express itself either as a desire to draw everyone down to one's level, or to raise oneself and everyone else up.
Only strong personalities can endure history, the weak ones are extinguished by it.
Discontent is the seed of ethics.
Through searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The historian looks backwards, and finally he also believes backwards.
The great wars of the present age are the effects of the study of history.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
To think historically is almost the same thing now as if in all ages history had been made according to theory.
Every past is worth condemning.
History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.