That, however, is - mediocrity, though it be called moderation.

In affability there is no hatred of men, but for that very reason there is all too much contempt for men.

Many find their heart when they have lost their head.

It is not in how one soul approaches another but in how it withdraws that I knowr its affinity and solidarity with the other.

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

Wherever primitive man put up a word, he believed he had made a discovery. How utterly mistaken he really was! He had touched a problem, and while supposing he had solved it, he had created and obstacle to its solution. Now, with every new knowledge we stumble over flint-like and petrified words and, in so doing, break a leg sooner than a word.

Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon; women at once make it into an ornament.