"What do we have in common with..." - Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche

“No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.”

“Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can assume great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became “geniuses” (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole.”

“But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does "eternal life" matter, or life at all?”

“Be sensitive to the plight of others. You have to know about the tragedies as well as the triumphs, the failures as well as the success.”

“Men are sensitive in strange ways. If a man has built a fire and the last log does not burn, he will take it personally.”

“Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.”

“How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Its tenderness, and make itself a pastime To harder bosoms!”

“I am to be broken. I am to be derided all my life. I am to be cast up and down among these men and women, with their twitching faces, with their lying tongues, like a cork on a rough sea. Like a ribbon of weed I am flung far every time the door opens.”

“To laugh is to risk appearing a fool, to weep is to risk appearing too sentimental, to reach out for another is to risk involvement, and to expose feelings is to risk exposing one's true self.”