We become aware, however, that all customs, even the hardest, grow pleasanter and milder with time, and that the severest way of life may become a habit and therefore a pleasure.

When a nation is on the downward path, when it feels its belief in its own future, its hope of freedom slipping from it, when it begins to see submission as a first necessity and the virtues of submission as measures of self-preservation, then it must overhaul its God.

He who strays from the customary becomes a sacrifice to the extraordinary; he who keeps to the customary becomes its slave. He iscondemned to perish in either case.

What is life? A continuous praise and blame.

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

Man demands truth and fulfills this demand in moral intercourse with other men; this is the basis of all social life. One anticipates the unpleasant consequences of reciprocal lying. From this there arises the duty of truth. We permit epic poets to lie because we expect no detrimental consequences in this case. Thus the lie is permitted where it is considered something pleasant. Assuming that it does no harm, the lie is beautiful and charming.

One never dives into the water to save a drowning man more eagerly than when there are others present who dare not take the risk.