The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

Convictions are prisons.

We cannot even reproduce our thoughts entirely in words.

We are most unfair to God; we do not allow Him to sin.

When the gratitude that many owe to one discards all modesty, then there is fame.

Mothers easily become jealous of their sons' friends when they are particularly successful. As a rule a mother loves herself in her son more than she does the son himself.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.