The best friend will probably acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is founded on the talent for friendship.

One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain.

For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are here, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them!

To explore the whole sphere of the modern soul, to have sat in every nook- my ambition, my torture, and my happiness