A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

The most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it brings against them its most formidable weapons.

A man who possesses genius is insufferable unless he also possesses at least two other things: gratitude and cleanliness.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

Preparatory human beings. - I welcome all signs that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin, which will restore honour to courage above all! For this age shall prepare the way for one yet higher, and it shall gather the strength that this higher age will require some day - the age that will carry heroism into the search for knowledge and that will wage wars for the sake of ideas and their consequences.

Cows sometimes wear an expression resembling wonderment arrested on its way to becoming a question. In the eye of superior intelligence, on the other hand, lies the nil admirari spread out like the monotony of a cloudless sky.

The greatest giver of alms is cowardice.