It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.

The "religion of pity" to which people would like to convert us- oh, we know well enough the hysterical little men and women who need this religion at present as a veil and an adornment!

The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing--that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.

"State," I call it, where they all drink poison, the good and the wicked; "state," where they all lose themselves, the good and the wicked; "state," where they all call their slow suicide-"life."

Hope, in its stronger forms, is a great deal more powerful stimulans to life than any sort of realized joy can ever be. Man must be sustained in suffering by a hope so high that no conflict with actuality can dash it - so high, indeed, that no fulfilment can satisfy it: a hope reaching out beyond this world.

[Heraclitus had] a regal air of certainty.

Where do your greatest dangers lie?--In pity.