Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

Belief in truth begins with doubting all that has hitherto been believed to be true.

I awoke you from your sleep because I saw that you were having a nightmare. And now you are cross and say to me: "What are we supposed to do now? Everything is still night!" You ingrates! You should go to sleep again and dream better.

As refined fare serves a hungry man as well as and no better than coarser food, the more pretentious artist will not dream of inviting the hungry man to his meal.

One should part from life as Odysseus parted from Nausicaa-blessing it rather than in love with it.

Go through the moral demands...one by one and you will find that man could not live up to them; the intention is not that he should become more moral, but that he should feel as sinful as possible. If man had failed to find this feeling pleasant - why should he have engendered such an idea and adhered to it for so long?... Man was by every means to be made sinful and thereby become excited, animated, enlivened in general. To excite, animate, enliven at any price.

What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent