Indeed, at hearing the news that 'the old god is dead', we philosophers and 'free spirits' feel illuminated by a new dawn; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, forebodings, expectation - finally the horizon seems clear again, even if not bright; finally our ships may set out again, set out to face any danger; every daring of the lover of knowledge is allowed again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; maybe there has never been such an 'open sea'.

What Europe owes to the Jews? - Many things, good and bad, and above all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite demands, of infinite significations, the whole Romanticism and sublimity of moral questionableness - and consequently just the most attractive, ensnaring, and exquisite element in those iridescences and allurements to life, in the aftersheen of which the sky of our European culture, its evening sky, now glows - perhaps glows out.

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

The one seeks a midwife to deliver his thoughts, the other, someone to assist: thus a good conversation comes into being.

The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels capable of performing.

History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.

The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.