To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing - in which thou art unwilling to believe - is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.

The soul must have its chosen sewers to carry away its ordure. This function is performed by persons, relationships, professions, the fatherland, the world, or finally, for the really arrogant - I mean our modern pessimists - by the Good God himself.

The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own--that is, for his age--so as to be able even then to take pleasurein himself.

Everyone who enjoys supposes that the tree was concerned with the fruit, but it was really concerned with the seed. -In this lies the difference between all those who create and those who enjoy.

All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen.

You implanted your highest goal into the heart of those passions: then they became your virtues and joys.