One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.

Whoever has not two-thirds of his time to himself, is a slave.

The soul must have its chosen sewers to carry away its ordure. This function is performed by persons, relationships, professions, the fatherland, the world, or finally, for the really arrogant - I mean our modern pessimists - by the Good God himself.

Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long the kernel is to exist or not; in which, accordingly, the stunted, diseased and dull witted jailer is lord, and indicates the moment at which his distinguished prisoner shall die.

He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers - and spirit itself will stink.

What we know oman today is limited precisely by the extent to which we have regarded him as a machine.