Why does the past look so enticing to us? For the same reason why from a distance a meadow with flowers looks like a flower bed.

I would love to be able to write a tragedy in my imagination--it would turn into a masterpiece.

When mundane, lowly activities are at stake, too much insight is detrimental — far-sightedness errs in immediate concerns.

It is not a matter of desire, but of coercion and duty.

Whoever considers morality the main objective of human existence, seems to me like a person who defines the purpose of a clock asnot going wrong. The first objective for a clock, is, however, that it does run; not going wrong is an additional regulative function. If not a watch's greatest accomplishment were not going wrong, unwound watches might be the best.

No one will stop to help you when you are in need, but everyone forces opinions upon you that you do not require.

Genius resembles a bell; in order to ring it must be suspended into pure air, and when a foreign body touches it, its joyful toneis silenced.