To strive consciously for an object and to engage in engineering -- that is, incessantly and eternally to make new roads, wherever they may lead.

There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

I have no self-respect. But can a man of acute sensibility respect himself at all?

I almost do not exist now and I know it; God knows what lives in me in place of me.

What tender and devoted mother wouldn't be dismayed and ill with terror at her son's or daughter's stepping even one hair's breath off the beaten track. No, better let him be happy and live in comfort without originality, is what every mother thinks when she rocks the cradle. The only person among us who can fail to reach the general's rank is the original man - in other words, the man who won't be quiet.

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.