Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what there is to love in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under.

Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.