When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began.

Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.

Never to read another book that was born and baptized (with ink) at the same time.

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.