There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Buddhism as their art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by piety to a seemingly higher order of things, and thereby to retain their satisfaction with the actual world in which they find it difficult enough to live - this very difficulty being necessary.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

What is wanted - whether this is admitted or not - is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicating all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.