If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs do for the sake of our church : it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.

If a woman possesses manly virtues, she is to be run away from; and if she does not possess them, she runs away herself.

He who despises himself esteems himself as a self-despiser.

Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of man?

However much we may feel for the misery of someone close to us, we always act with some artificiality in their presence. We hold-back from telling them everything we think, often because we do not genuinely mean what we say; or because we take a pleasure in their plight, thankful that we are not affected.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?