No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.

Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.

Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist.

A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.

I love something: and scarcely do I love it completely when the tyrant in me says: "I want that in sacrifice." This cruelty is in my entrails. Behold! I am evil.

The author must keep his mouth shut when his work starts to speak.

One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.