The golden fleece of self-sufficiency guards against cudgel- blows but not against pin-pricks.

In affability there is no hatred of men, but for that very reason there is all too much contempt for men.

Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

The living is a species of the dead; and not a very attractive one.

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.

Never to talk about oneself is a very refined form of hypocrisy.

Do I advise you to love the neighbor? I suggest rather to escape from the neighbor and to love those who are the farthest away from you. Higher than the love for the neighbor is the love for the man who is distant and has still to come.