The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it.

Heroism--that is the disposition of a man who aspires to a goal compared to which he himself is wholly insignificant. Heroism is the good will to self-destruction.

A man unconsciously imagines that where he is strong, where he feels most thoroughly alive, the element of his freedom must lie.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity-and finally liberty is bestowed by sleep.

What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored.

All preachers of morality, as also all theologians have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary.