Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.

In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sapand seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it--and tries to live off philosophy.

There exists above the "productive" man a yet higher species.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.

He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.

The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.