If God does not exist, then everything is permissible.

Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless.

Even those who have renounced Christianity and attack it, in their inmost being still follow the Christian ideal, for hitherto neither their subtlety nor the ardour of their hearts has been able to create a higher ideal of man and of virtue than the ideal given by Christ of old.

a man is no example for a woman. It’s a different thing.

Of course I shall go astray often...for who does not make mistakes? But I cannot go far wrong for I have seen the truth.

But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost.

if she had ordered me to throw myself down then, I would have done it! If she had said it only as a joke, said it with contempt, spitting on me--even then I would have jumped!