I kept thinking how marvellous it would be if I could somehow tear my heart, which felt so heavy, out of my chest.

I agree that one can't dispense with the reins and the whip altogether, for knaves find their way even into literature, but no thinking will discover a better police for literature than the critics and the author's own conscience.

No matter how corrupt and unjust a convict may be, he loves fairness more than anything else. If the people placed over him are unfair, from year to year he lapses into an embittered state characterized by an extreme lack of faith.

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

There is nothing more awful, insulting, and depressing than banality.

To describe drunkenness for the colorful vocabulary is rather cynical. There is nothing easier than to capitalize on drunkards.

I should like to meet a philosopher like Nietzsche somewhere in a train or a steamer, and to spend the whole night talking to him. I consider his philosophy won't last long, however. It's more showy than convincing.