It is not when it is dangerous to tell the truth that its advocates are hardest to find, but when it is boring.

One should adpot only those situations in which one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one must either fall or stand--or escape.

Science ... has no consideration for ultimate purposes, any more than Nature has, but just as the latter occasionally achieves things of the greatest suitableness without intending to do so, so also true science, as the imitator of nature in ideas, will occasionally and in many ways further the usefulness and welfare of man,-but also without intending to do so.

At the very moment when someone is beginning to take philosophy seriously, the whole world believes the opposite.

Poets and writers who are in love with the superlative all want to do more than they can.

Lust and self-mutilation are closely related impulses. There are also self-mutilators among knowers: they do not want to be creators under any circumstances.

The belief in authority is the source of conscience; which is therefore not the voice of God in the heart of man, but the voice of some men in man.