A conservative, I take it, is a man who despises vulgarity; but the argument which is concerned exclusively with calculations of success, and is based on blindness to the nobility of the effort, is vulgar.

The emancipation of the scholars and scientists from philosophy is according to [Nietzsche] only a part of the democratic movement, i.e. of the emancipation of the low from subordination to the high. ... The plebeian character of the contemporary scholar or scientist is due to the fact that he has no reverence for himself.

The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.

But the God of the Bible is not only One, but the only possible One.

The most superficial fact regarding the 'Discourses,' the fact that the number of its chapters equals the number of books of Livy's 'History,' compelled us to start a chain of tentative reasoning which brings us suddenly face to face with the only New Testament quotation that ever appears in Machiavelli's two books and with an enormous blasphemy.

Even by proving that a certain view is indispensable for living well, one proves merely that the view in question is a salutary myth: one does not prove it to be true.

The adjective "political" in "political philosophy" designates not so much the subject matter as a manner of treatment; from this point of view, I say, "political philosophy" means primarily not the philosophic study of politics, but the political, or popular, treatment of philosophy, or the political introduction to philosophy the attempt to lead qualified citizens, or rather their qualified sons, from the political life to the philosophic life.