The grand style follows suit with all great passion. It disdains to please, it forgets to persuade. It commands. It wills.

Where one despises, one cannot wage war. Where one commands, where one sees something beneath one, one ought not to wage war.

Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long-winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans.

Much that is dreadful and inhuman in history, much that one hardly likes to believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who carries out are different people. The former does not behold the sight and does not experience the strong impression on the imagination. The latter obeys a superior and therefore feels no responsibility for the acts.

The will to overcome a passion is in the end merely the will of another or several other passions

Everything that is ponderous, vicious and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying kinds of style, are developed in great variety among Germans