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.

What we do is never understood, but always merely praised or blamed.

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).

Too long, the earth has been a madhouse!

Yet for all that, there is nothing in me of a founder of a religion--religions are affairs of the rabble; I find it necessary to wash my hands after I have come into contact with religious people.

Ye shall only have foes to be hated; but not foes to be despised: ye must be proud of your foes.

Whoever thought that he had understood something of me had merely construed something out of me, after his own image.