We labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think. Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.

Whoever has really sacrificed anything, knows that he wanted and got something in return.

Art depends upon the inexactitude of sight.

Men submit from habit to everything that seeks power.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable.

What is new, however, is always evil, being that which wants to conquer and overthrow the old boundary markers and the old pieties; and only what is old is good. The good men are in all ages those who dig the old thoughts, digging deep and getting them to bear fruit - the farmers of the spirit. But eventually all land is depleted, and the ploughshare of evil must come again and again.