What a dissimilarity we see in walking, swimming, and flying. And yet it is one and the same motion: it is just that the load- bearing capacity of the earth differs from that of the water, and that that of the water differs from that of the air! Thus we should also learn to fly as thinkers--and not imagine that we are thereby becoming idle dreamers!

The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.

The drive toward knowledge has a moral origin.

Your soul will be dead even before your body: fear nothing further.

Be generous in nature and thought; for this wins respect and gives confidence and power.

There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them.

Many find their heart when they have lost their head.