The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.

We should not talk about our friends: otherwise we will talk away the feeling of friendship.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.

Man is at his furthest remove from the animal as a child, his intellect most human. With his fifteenth year and puberty he comes astep closer to the animal; with the sense of possessions of his thirties (the median line between laziness and greediness), still another step. In his sixtieth year of life he frequently loses his modesty as well, then the septuagenarian steps up to us as a completely unmasked beast: one need only look at the eyes and the teeth.

The best way to give assistance to those who are deeply embarrassed and to calm them down is to praise them decisively.

One must first be firmly set in oneself, one must stand securely on one's own two legs otherwise one cannot love at all.

Immortal is the moment when I engendered the recurrence. For the sake of this moment I bear the recurrence.