One who dresses in rags that have been washed clean dresses cleanly to be sure, but raggedly nonetheless.

Reality is captured in the categorical nets of Language only at the expense of fatal distortion.

Both classically- and romantically-minded spirits-inasmuch as these two species always exist-occupy themselves with a vision of the future: but the former do so out of a strength of their age, the latter out of its weakness.

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.

In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sapand seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it--and tries to live off philosophy.

It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.

Examine the life of the best and most productive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly skywards can dispense with bad weather and storms. Whether misfortune and opposition, or every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favourable conditions without which a great growth even of virtue is hardly possible?