The love of truth has its reward in heaven and even on earth.

Marriage was contrived for ordinary people, for people who are capable of neither great love nor great friendship, which is to say, for most people--but also for those exceptionally rare ones who are capable of love as well as of friendship.

Every profound spirit needs a mask: even more, around every profound spirit a mask is continually growing.

A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.

Those who show pity and are always ready to help during times of trouble are seldom the same ones who rejoice in our joy: when others are happy they have nothing to do, they become superfluous and lose their feeling of superiority, and so they easily show their displeasure.

...throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.

Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise: so say the most ancient and most modern serpents.