Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by decline in bile.
Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence... and loathing seizes him.
Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
Art is the proper task of life.
We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what other men say in whole books - what other men do not say in whole books.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences; what others say in a whole book.
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who is leaving is still there.
I conjure you, my brethren, to remain faithful to earth, and do not believe those who speak unto you of superterrestrial hopes! Poisoners they are, whether they know it or not.
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?
There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?