All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks, in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.

I too have been in the underworld, as was Odysseus, and I will often be there again; not only sheep have I sacrificed so as to beable to speak with a few dead souls, but neither have I spared my own blood as well.

To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.

The job of rearing a child consists of making conscious activities unconscious.

One should never know too precisely whom one has married

Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can assume great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.

A book full of brilliance imparts some of it even to its opponents.