Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Once and for all, there are many things I choose not to know.--Wisdom sets limits even to knowledge.

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.

As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

It is only when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers that we comprehend how meaningless followers are.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood.