In being wildly natural we recover best from being unnatural, from being spiritual.

Yet tell me, my brothers: if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there not still lacking--humanity itself?

God is a too palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers-fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think!

A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.

There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time.

One should never know too precisely whom one has married

Those who show pity and are always ready to help during times of trouble are seldom the same ones who rejoice in our joy: when others are happy they have nothing to do, they become superfluous and lose their feeling of superiority, and so they easily show their displeasure.