A light has dawned for me: I need companions, living ones, not dead companions and corpses which I carry with me wherever I wish. But I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves- and who want to go where I want to go.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does "eternal life" matter, or life at all?

Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.

Completely true to nature!' - what a lie: / How could nature ever be constrained into a picture? / The smallest bit of nature is infinite! / And so he paints what he likes about it. / And what does he like? He likes what he can paint!

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.