What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives acts and experiences otherwise than we do?

There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

As a result, nature is something entirely different from what comes to mind when we invoke its name.

Historical refutation as the definitive refutation.- In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God - today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.

Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly.

[Heraclitus] did not require humans or their sort of knowledge, since everything into which one may inquire he despises [as being] in contrast [to his own] inward-turning wisdom. [To him] all learning from others is a sign of nonwisdom, because the wise man focuses his vision on his own intelligence.