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

The truth is ugly: we have art so as not to perish from the truth.

I absolutely cannot see how one can later make up for having failed to go to a good school at the proper time. For this is what distinguishes the hard school as a good school from all others: that much is demanded; and sternly demanded; that the good, even the exceptional, is demanded as the norm; that praise is rare, that indulgence is nonexistent; that blame is apportioned sharply, objectively, without regard for talent or antecedents. What does one learn in a hard school? Obeying and commanding.

What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored.

Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, "know thyself," but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.

I can be thrown by the wayside, but I'm looking at the stars.

They're so cold, these scholars! May lightning strike their food so that their mouths learn how to eat fire!