We talk about taking "pleasure in a thing": but in truth it is pleasure in ourselves, mediated by a thing.

The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.

Do not paint a picture either of God or the devil on your walls: this will ruin both your walls and the atmosphere.

We criticize a man or a book most sharply when we sketch out their ideal.

That little hypocrites and half-crazed people dare to imagine that on their account the laws of nature are constantly broken; such an enhancement of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet Christianity owes its triumph to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

A martyr's disciples suffer more than the martyr.