Whoever, at any time, has undertaken to build a new heaven has found the strength for it in his own hell.

A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow.

All things that are truly great are at first thought impossible.

Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain.

...one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by anyone.

There are expressions and bulls-eyes of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized.

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.