Any defeat, however trivial, may be fatal to a savior of the plain people. They never admire a messiah with a bloody nose.

Confidence: The feeling that makes one believe a man, even when one knows that one would lie in his place

The fundamental trouble with marriage is that it shakes a man's confidence in himself, and so greatly diminishes his general competence and effectiveness. His habit of mind becomes that of a commander who has lost a decisive and calamitous battle. He quite trusts himself thereafter.

Probably the worst thing that has happened in America in my time is the decay of confidence in the courts. No one can be sure any more that in a given case they will uphold the plainest mandate of the Constitution. On the contrary, everyone begins to be more or less convinced in advance that they won't. Judges are chosen not because they know the Constitution and are in favor of it, but precisely because they appear to be against it.

The Public ... demands certainties ... But there are not certainties

Nietzsche, to the end of his days, remained a Russian pastor's son, and hence two-thirds of a Puritan; he erected his war upon holiness, toward the end, into a sort of holy war.

Never argue with a man whose job depends on not being convinced.