I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason - as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.

Christianity is Platonism for the people.

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

I obviously do everything to be "hard to understand" myself

One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

I welcome all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour!

You know a moment is important when it is making your mind go numb with beauty.