One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.

Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.

THE TEACHER AS A NECESSARY EVIL. Let us have as few people as possible between the productive minds and the hungry and recipient minds! The middlemen almost unconsciously adulterate the food which they supply. It is because of teachers that so little is learned, and that so badly.

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

We must understand how to hide in darkness in order to escape the gnat-swarms of utterly annoying admirers.

Lying very still and thinking very little is the most inexpensive medicine for all the sicknesses of the soul, and when administered with good intentions it grows more and more pleasant with each passing hour.

One never perishes through anybody but oneself.