Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

The same passions in man and woman nonetheless differ in tempo; hence man and woman do not cease misunderstanding one another.

The strongest and most evil spirits have to date advanced mankind the most: they always rekindled the sleeping passions - all orderly arranged society lulls the passions to sleep; they always reawakened the sense of comparison, of contradiction, of delight in the new, the adventurous, the untried; they compelled men to set opinion against opinion, ideal plan against ideal plan.

Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence.

Without meaning, without substance, without aim: a mere 'public opinion'.

It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation.

What is it that you love in others?--My hopes.