Psychology lures even most serious people into romancing, and quite unconsciously.
My God, but what do I care about the laws of nature and arithmatic if for some reason these laws and two times two is four are not to my liking?
Wealth is the number of things one can do without.
I don’t need money, or, better, it’s not money that I need; it’s not even power; I need only what is obtained by power and simply cannot be obtained without power: the solitary and calm awareness of strength! That is the fullest definition of freedom, which the world so struggles over!
If man has one good memory to go by, that may be enough to save him.
The absurd is only too necessary on earth. The world stands on absurdities.
Hold your tongue; you won’t understand anything. If there is no God, then I am God.
A true friend of mankind whose heart has but once quivered in compassion over the sufferings of the people, will understand and forgive all the impassable alluvial filth in which they are submerged, and will be able to discover the diamonds in the filth.
To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character.
Trifles, trifles are what matter!
If you happen to have a wart on your nose or forehead, you cannot help imagining that no one in the world has anything else to do but stare at your wart, laugh at it, and condemn you for it, even though you have discovered America.
Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
The jealous are the readiest of all to forgive, and all women know it.
One must first learn to live oneself before one blames others.
Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.
It is not the real punishment. The only effectual one, the only deterrent and softening one, lies in the recognition of sin by conscience.
The more I detest men individually the more ardent becomes my love for humanity.
To cook your hare you must first catch it.
Oh, if only I did nothing simply as a result of laziness.
The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him.