It is only when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers that we comprehend how meaningless followers are.

The last Christian died on a cross.

I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: "Am I a dishonest player?" - for he is willing to succumb.

The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.

Mediocrity is the most effective mask a superior spirit can wear, because to the great majority, which is to say, to the mediocre,it will not suggest a disguise:--and yet it is precisely for their sake that he puts it on--so as not to arouse them, and, indeed, not infrequently to avoid this out of pity and benevolence.

All philosophy is a form of confession.

No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.