When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

The spiritual activity of millennia is deposited in language.

The sick woman especially: no one surpasses her in refinements for ruling, oppressing, tyrannising.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Everyone needs a sense of shame, but no one needs to feel ashamed.

A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possesses at least two things besides: gratitude and purity.

I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule -- and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.)