The object of the state is always the same: to limit the individual, to tame him, to subordinate him, to subjugate him.

Religion itself is without genius. There is no religious genius and no one would be permitted to distinguish between the talented and the untalented in religion.

Yes, yes, children must early be made to practise piety, godliness, and propriety; a person of good breeding is one into whom good maxims have been instilled and impressed, poured in through a funnel, thrashed in and preached in.

If the child has not an object that it can occupy itself with, it feels ennui; for it does not yet know how to occupy itself with itself.

He who is infatuated with Man leaves persons out of account so far as that infatuation extends, and floats in an ideal, sacred interest. Man, you see, is not a person, but an ideal, a spook.

Nothing is more to me than myself.

Every State is a despotism, be the despot one or many.