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

[Heraclitus' language] dispenses with lightness and artificial decoration, foremost out of disgust for humanity and out of [his own] defiant feeling.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.

To our strongest impulse, to the tyrant in us, not only our reason but also our conscience yields.

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

Different types of dangerous lives-You have no idea what you are living through; you rush through life as if you were drunk and now and then fall down some staircase. But thanks to your drunkenness you never break a limb; your muscles are too relaxed and your brain too benighted for you to find the stones of these stairs as hard as we do.