Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many it is almost a vice.

With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause -- a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.

He who bestows something great receives no gratitude; for in accepting it the recipient has already been weighed down too much.

The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as soon as you ca not be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon past when you could be content to live concealed int he woods like timid deer!

I live in my own place - have never copied anyone even half, and at any master who lacks the grace - to laugh at himself - I laugh.

I no longer want to walk on worn soles.

You have not yet suffered enough! For you suffer only from yourselves, you have not yet suffered from man.