Historical refutation as the definitive refutation.- In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God - today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.

Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by decline in bile.

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.

We should be a mirror of being: we are God in miniature.

The one conclusive argument that has at all times discouraged people from drinking a poison is not that it kills but rather that it tastes bad.

No artist tolerates reality.

Around the hero everything turns into a tragedy, around the demigod, a satyr-play, and around God--what? perhaps a "world"?