“Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.”
“It is absolutely impossible for a subject to see or have insight into something while leaving itself out of the picture, so impossible that knowing and being are the most opposite of all spheres.”
“Those that achieve anything that looks beyond the vision and thinking of their peers provoke jealousy and hatred disguised as the ordinary.”
“Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.”
“The object of convalescence ought to be to turn our attention to life: at other times, simply to our tasks!”
“No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.”
“I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.”
“The spirit of the poet craves spectators... even if only buffaloes.”
“If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves carried aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people's backs and heads!”
“People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful.”
“A man who is very busy seldom changes his opinions.”
“People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not empty and monotonous.”
“The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever fathom their depths - they haven't any.”
“The value of life itself cannot be estimated.”
“The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has produced all the elevations of humanity so far?”
“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.”
“Improvements are invented only by those who can feel that something is not good.”
“...the only psychologist from whom I have anything to learn.”
“Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.”
“The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.”
“Ye shall be those whose eyes ever seek for an enemy - for YOUR enemy. And with some of you there is hatred at first sight.”
“But are there many honest people who will admit that it is pleasing to give pain?”
“He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.”
“At the bottom of all these noble races the beast of prey, the splendid blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and victory.”
“Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.”
