Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

Against the censurers of brevity. - Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novice in this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefly something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

Where does one not find that bland degeneration which beer produces in the spirit!

Assuming that we have trained our imagination to denounce the past, we will not suffer much from unfulfilled wishes.

Time, space, and causality are only metaphors of knowledge, with which we explain things to ourselves.

The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing--that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.