Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces concentration, it sharpens the consciousness of alienation, it strengthens the power of resistance.

Whoever thought that he had understood something of me had merely construed something out of me, after his own image.

What I understand by "philosopher": a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger.

There did he sit shrivelled in his chimney corner, fretting on account of his weak legs, world weary, will weary, and one day he suffocated through his excessive pity.

Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly.

What really makes one indignant about suffering isn't the thing itself but the senselessness of it.

Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth.