Envy and jealousy are the private parts of the human soul. Perhaps the comparison can be extended.
Do not be deceived! The busiest people harbor the greatest weariness, their restlessness is weakness – they no longer have the capacity for waiting and idleness.
Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.
That whatever a man says, promises, or resolves in passion he must stick to later on when he is cold and sober – this demand is among the heaviest burdens that weigh on humankind.
The one seeks a midwife to deliver his thoughts, the other, someone to assist: thus a good conversation comes into being.
Sometimes in conversation the sound of our own voice distracts us and misleads us into making assertions that in no way express our true opinions.
Whether in conversation we generally agree or disagree with others is largely a matter of habit: the one tendency makes as much sense as the other.
All parties attempt to represent important things that have developed outside themselves as unimportant, and where they fail in this they assail those things all the more bitterly the more admirable they are.
How can anyone become a thinker unless he spends at least a third of every day away from passions, people, and books?
Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox.
We must take precautions against being prematurely honed sharp – since at the same time we are being prematurely honed thin.
The one conclusive argument that has at all times discouraged people from drinking a poison is not that it kills but rather that it tastes bad.
We fear our neighbor’s hostile mood because we are afraid that this mood will lead him to penetrate our secrets.
When a man reaches his maturity in understanding and in years, the feeling comes over him that his father was wrong to beget him.
Give me today, for once, the worst throw of your dice, destiny. Today I transmute everything into gold.
Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.
Whoever gives advice to the sick gains a sense of superiority over them, no matter whether his advice is accepted or rejected. That is why sick people who are sensitive and proud hate their advisors even more than their illnesses.
I have exposed myself and am not ashamed to stand there naked. “Shame” is what we call the monster that attached itself to men when they aspired beyond the animals.
I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said – and did not say.
Whatever is gold does not glitter. A gentle radiance belongs to the noblest metal.