Everything good is instinct--and, as a result, easy, necessary, free.

In war personal revenge maintains its silence.

Good deeds shun the light as anxiously as evil deeds: the latter fear that disclosure will bring on pain (as punishment), while the former fear that disclosure will take away pleasure (that pure pleasure, that pleasure per se, which immediately ceases once the vanity's satisfaction is added).

You cannot learn to fly by flying. First you must learn to walk, to run, to climb, to dance.

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

I need solitude, which is to say, recovery, return to my self, the breath of a free, light, playful air.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.