What is wanted - whether this is admitted or not - is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicating all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

However unchristian it may seem, I do not even bear any ill feeling towards myself.

Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains, although I do not know who assumed that it could. But it can put mountains where there are none.

The people we have employed in an undertaking that has turned out badly should be doubly rewarded.

We are, indeed, not among the least contented. You, however, if your belief makes you blessed then appear to be blessed! Your faces have always been more injurious to your belief than our objections have! If these glad tidings of your Bible were written on your faces, you would not need to insist so obstinately on the authority of that book ... As things are, however, all your apologies for Christianity have their roots in your lack of Christianity; with your defense plea you inscribe your own bill of indictment.

Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.