To blaspheme the earth is now the most dreadful sin, and to rate the heart of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at five or six great men- yes, and then to get around them.

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

A certain sense of cruelty towards oneself and others is Christian; hatred of those who think differently; the will to persecute. Mortal hostility against the masters of the earth, against the 'noble', that is also Christian; hatred of mind, of pride, courage, freedom, libertinage of mind, is Christian; hatred of the senses, of joy in general, is Christian.

Among the wealthy, generosity is often merely a kind of shyness.

Even the most honest writer lets slip a word too many when he wants to round off a period.

One can also be undignified and flattering toward a virtue.