When a man is ill his very goodness is sickly.

In the beautiful, man sets himself up as the standard of perfection; in select cases he worships himself in it. Man believes that the world itself is filled with beauty -he forgets that it is he who has created it. He alone has bestowed beauty upon the world -alas! only a very human, an all too human, beauty.

I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said--and did not say.

Horrible experiences lead us to wonder whether the person who experiences them might not be something horrible.

The soul must have its chosen sewers to carry away its ordure. This function is performed by persons, relationships, professions, the fatherland, the world, or finally, for the really arrogant - I mean our modern pessimists - by the Good God himself.

[Heraclitus' language] dispenses with lightness and artificial decoration, foremost out of disgust for humanity and out of [his own] defiant feeling.

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.