One never dives into the water to save a drowning man more eagerly than when there are others present who dare not take the risk.

Perhaps man will rise ever higher as soon as he ceases to flow out into a god.

In Bach there is still too much crude Christianity, crude Germanism, crude scholasticism; he stands on the threshold of European (modern) music, but he looks back from there to the Middle Ages.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel is to exist or not; in which, accordingly, the stunted, diseased and dull witted jailer is lord, and indicates the moment at which his distinguished prisoner shall die.

Freedom of opinion is like health; both are individual, and no good general conception can be set up of either of them.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.