What is the vanity of the vainest man compared with the vanity which the most modest possesses when, in the midst of nature and the world, he feels himself to be man!

The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes.

Physician, help yourself: thus help your patient too. Let this be his best help: that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills. 'Behold , just now the world ... entire love. And woman must obey and find a depth for her surface. Surface is the disposition of woman: a mobile, stormy film over shallow water. Man's disposition, however, is deep; his river roars in subterranean caves: woman feels his strength but does not comprehend it.

Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape.

And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.