Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs.
Marriage: that I call the will of two to create the one who is more than those who created it.
Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.
Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven.
Not to him who is offensive to us are we most unfair, but to him who doth not concern us at all.
Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
No victor believes in chance.
Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.
Bad cooks – and the utter lack of reason in the kitchen – have delayed human development longest and impaired it most.
My idea of paradise is a straight line to goal.
The world was conquered through the understanding of dogs; the world exists through the understanding of dogs.
I love the valiant; but it is not enough to wield a broadsword, one must also know against whom.
Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned.
No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.
A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his Ariadne.
I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself.
Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving, mercy?
A life without music is an error.
The essential thing ‘in heaven and earth’ is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.
Improvements are invented only by those who can feel that something is not good.