Like tourists huffing and puffing to reach the peak we forget the view on the way up.

One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

The moment Germany rises as a great power, France gains a new importance as a cultural power.

Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree. Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure- or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.

Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal.

They devour each other and cannot even digest themselves.