15 Quotes by Jacob Burckhardt

Power is of its nature evil, whoever wields it.

In history the way of annihilation is invariably prepared by inward degeneration, by decrease of life. Only then can a shock from outside put an end to the whole.

The biggest mischief in the past century has been perpetrated by Rousseau with his doctrine of the goodness of human nature. The mob and the intellectuals derived from it the vision of a Golden Age which would arrive without fail once the noble human race could act according to its whims.

Neither in the life of the individual nor in that of mankind is it desirable to know the future.

There might be a fact of the greatest significance reported by Thucydides which will only be recognized as such a hundred years from now.

Between the two lay a multitude of political units – republics and despots – in part of long standing, in part of recent origin, whose existence was founded simply on their power to maintain it.