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.

Writers ought to be regarded as wrongdoers who deserve to be acquitted or pardoned only in the rarest cases: that would be a way to keep books from getting out of hand.

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.

We would not let ourselves be burned to death for our opinions: we are not sure enough of them for that.

To learn from our enemies is the best pathway to loving them: for it makes us grateful to them.

Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not have been capable of it.

History teaches that a race of people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and indisputable principles.