In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say marvelously simplified Christianity. A god who in his love arranges everything in a manner that in the end will be best for us; a god who gives to us and takes from us our virtue and our happiness, so that as a whole all is meet and fit and there is no reason for us to take life sadly, let alone exclaim against it; in short, resignation and modest demands elevated to godhead

One had better put on gloves before handling the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it highly advisable.

So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, every one is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

Men inadvertently comport themselves with nobility when they have grown accustomed to wanting nothing from others and always giving to them.

Heraclitus was an opponent of all democratic parties.