p.9-10 Objectively, phenomena do not separate themselves according to space and time; it is our apprehension that thus distinguishes them, according as they appear to relate themselves more to space or to time... The restless movement in the world of phenomena causes us to apprehend things as in a constant development, this transition on the part of something seeming merely to repeat itself periodically, in case of others to supplement the repetition with ascent, addition, ceaseless growth, the system continually making, so to speak, 'a contribution to itself.' In those phenomena in which we discover an advance of this kind, we take the successive character, the element of time, as the determining thing.

p.10 All empirical knowledge depends upon the 'specific energy' of the nerves of sense, through the excitation of which the mind receives, not 'images' but signs of things without, which signs this excitation has brought before it. Thus it develops for itself systems of signs, in which the corresponding external things present themselves to it, constituting a world of ideas. In these the mind, continually correcting, enlarging and building up its world, finds itself in possession of the external world, that it, so far as it can and must possess this in order to grasp it, and, by knowledge, will and formative power, rule it.

p.17 Our knowledge is at first a something received, a something which has passed over to us, ours, yet as if not ours... Out of the totality of that which we thus fully possess, out of our appreciation of this 'content' as ours, and our recognition of ourselves in it, there is begotten in us a new idea of this knowledge as a whole, of each part of it and of each particular element in it. This idea arises in us involuntarily. There it is as a matter of fact... we must reflect upon the manner in which it had origin in us; we must investigate the combination of means through which we come by it; we must test it, make it clear, prove it.

p.26 The essence of interpretation lies in seeing realities in past events, realities with that certain plenitude of conditions which they must have had in order that they might become realities.

p.30-31 the moral potencies... develop, grow and rise only in the united work of men, of peoples, of times, only in the progressive history whose development and growth is their unfolding... Every period is a complex of the outworkings of all the moral potencies, however developed or rudimentary their unfolding may be

p.32 In such movement it is now this, now that, among the moral potencies, which takes the lead, and it often seems as if this leading potency were alone involved, everything else being subordinate to it. As the thought of this time, this people, this man, it inflames men's minds and leads, dominates and impels society to take a step essentially forward.

p.37 Each of these moral potencies creates its sphere, its world for itself, shut up in itself, and yet making the demand on every man to come forward with it and labor on its behalf, at the same time setting in activity and working out in it his own moral worth.

p.43 All changes and formations in the moral world are wrought by acts of will, as in the organic world everything is formed from cells. Acts of will are the efficients even where we say the State, the people, the church, etc., do this and that.

p.44 The real meaning of freedom is unhindered participation in the life and work of each one of the moral spheres, not being disturbed or hampered in one of them by another, and not being excluded from any.

p.46-47 All development and growth is movement toward an end, which is to be fulfilled by the movement, thus coming to its realization. In the moral world end links itself to end in an infinite chain. Every one of these ends has primarily its own way to go and its own development to further, but at the same time each is a condition for the others and is conditioned by them. Often enough they repress, interrupt and contradict one another. Often appear here and there temporary and partial steps backwards; but always only that presently, with so much stronger advance and with exalted elasticity, work may be pushed forward at some new spot or in some new form, each form impelling the rest and impelled by them.

p.51 The presentation of the results of investigation will be more correct the more its consciousness of its ignorance equals that of its knowledge.

p.56 The essence of theory is that it gathers from the shaping and elaborating process of investigation its net results, and imparts to them the form of a principle, a lawgiving conclusion, with, indeed, a legitimate claim to this character.

p.103 No material thing presents itself to us as 'true,' but we 'take it true' and make it certain by means of our knowledge.

p.111 In artistic labors, according to an old manner of expression, technique and Muses' work go hand in hand. It belongs to the nature of art that its productions make you forget the defects which inhere in its means of expression. Art can do this in proportion as the idea which it wishes to bring out in given forms, upon such and such materials, and with this technique, vivifies and illumines all these. What is created in such a manner is a totality, a world in itself. Muses' work has the power to make the observer or hearer fully and exclusively receive and feel in a given expression what that work was meant to express.

p.115 We are to discover methods. There is need of different ones for different problems, and often a combination of several is required for the solution of one problem.