One can only become a philosopher, but not be one. As one believes he is a philosopher, he stops being one.

All the great truths are basically trivial and so we have to find new ways, preferably paradoxical ways, of expressing them, in order to keep them from falling into oblivion.

About no subject is there less philosophizing than about philosophy.

It is individuality which is the original and eternal within man; personality doesn't matter so much. To pursue the education and development of this individuality as one's highest vocation would be a divine egoism.

Plato's philosophy is a dignified preface to future religion.

Some speak of the public as if it were someone with whom they have had dinner at the Leipzig Fair in the Hotel de Saxe. Who is this public? The public is not a thing, but rather an idea, a postulate, like the Church.

There is so much poetry, and yet nothing is more rare than a poetic work. This is what the masses make out of poetical sketches, studies, aphorisms, trends, ruins, and raw material.