What is originality? To see something that is as yet without a name, that is as yet impossible to designate, even though it staresus in the face. The way it usually is with people, it is a thing's name that makes it perceptible to them in the first place.--For the most part, the original ones have also been the name-givers.

The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.

Desire is happiness: satisfaction as happiness is merely the ultimate moment of desire. To be wish and wish alone is happiness, and a new wish over and over again.

Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.

There are two things a real man likes - danger and play; and he likes woman because she is the most dangerous of play things.

There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them.

The strongest knowledge (that of the total freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.