Life is an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power.

It is some fundamental certainty which a noble soul has about itself, something which is not to be sought, is not to be found, and perhaps, also, is not to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself.

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.

Everything becomes and recurs eternally - escape is impossible!

There is nothing for which men ask to be paid dearer than for humiliation.

A heart full of courage and cheerfulness needs a little danger from time to time, or the world gets unbearable.

We think that play and fairytales belong to childhood - how shortsighted that is! As though we would want at any time in our life to live without play and fairytales! We give these things other names, to be sure, and feel differently about them, but precisely this is the evidence that they are the same things, for the child too regards play as his work and fairy tales as his truth. The brevity of life ought to preserve us from a pedantic division of life into different stages - as though each brought something new.