He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth and not even as a traveller towards a final goal, for there is no such thing.

the voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls

The ordinary man is as courageous and invulnerable as a hero when he does not recognize any danger, when he has no eyes to see it.Conversely, the hero's only vulnerable spot is on his back, and so exactly where he has no eyes.

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.

The people we keep standing in the anteroom of our favor either start fermenting or turn sour.

One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.

Many find their heart when they have lost their head.