Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.

Yet tell me, my brothers: if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there not still lacking--humanity itself?

About what we neither know nor feel precisely while awake-whether we have a good or a bad conscience toward a certain person-our dreams instruct us fully and unambiguously.

It is only because man believes himself to be free, not because he is free, that he experiences remorse and pricks of conscience.

If one considers how much reason every person has for anxiety and timid self-concealment, and how three-quarters of his energy and goodwill can be paralyzed and made unfruitful by it, one has to be very grateful to fashion

Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby has he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph has he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.

Historical refutation as the definitive refutation.- In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God - today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.