Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life.

if we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how.

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.

The surest sign of the estrangement of the opinions of two persons is when they both say something ironical to each other and neither of them feels the irony.

You may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth.