“The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer.”

“Comparing man and woman on the whole, one may say: woman would not possess a genius for ornamentation if she did not also possessan instinct for the secondary role.”

“It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error, the error of responsibility, which is based upon the error of the freedom of will.”

“In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.”

“Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.”

“But lest I should mislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter.Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back.”

“A just thinker will allow full swing to his scepticism. I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my inkpot.... We are of different opinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on the side of truth.”

“Philanthropies and charities have a certain air of quackery.”

“To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone. The tradesman, the attorney comes out of the din and craft of the street and sees the sky and the woods, and is a man again. In their eternal calm, he finds himself.”

“If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!”

“The great man is not convulsible or tormentable; events pass over him without much impression.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”

“Faster than spring-time showers comes thought on thought.”

“This we prescribe, though no physician; Deep malice makes too deep incision; Forget, forgive; conclude and be agreed; Our doctors say this is no month to bleed.”

“Let me have war, say I; it exceeds peace as far as day does night; it's spritely, waking, audible, and full of vent.”

“So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.”

“Divers philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth.”

“To be, or not to be, that is the question: Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep, To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub.”

“We cannot conceive of matter being formed of nothing, since things require a seed to start from... Therefore there is not anything which returns to nothing, but all things return dissolved into their elements.”

“Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care.”

“Death rock me asleep.”

“You lack the season of all natures, sleep.”