as though "the Truth" were such an innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors!

At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the hardest service. What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart...that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience.

All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen.

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

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

Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life.

... art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.