Quote collection
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"Someone said: "I have been prejudiced against myself from my earliest childhood: hence I find some truth in all blame and some stupidity in all praise. I generally estimate praise too poorly and blame too highly."
"It is not conflict of opinions that has made history so violent but conflict of belief in opinions, that is to say conflict of convictions."
"No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access."
"The thought is merely a sign, as the word is merely a sign for the thought."
"I need solitude, which is to say, recovery, return to my self, the breath of a free, light, playful air."
"One should not be deceived: great spirits are skeptics ... Strength, FREEDOM which is born of the strength and overstrength of the spirit, proves itself by skepticism. Men of conviction are not worthy of the least consideration in fundamental questions of value and disvalue. Convictions are prisons."
"Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches and in punishment there is so much that is festive!"
"The state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies-and whatever it has, it has stolen."
"Existence begins in every instant."
"God is dead, but considering the state the species man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown."
"It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable."
"If a man have a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism."
"When one rows it is not the rowing which moves the ship: rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship."
"It is not enough to prove something, one also has to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learns how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!"
"He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted."
"How did reason come into the world? As is fitting, in an irrational manner, by accident. One will have to guess at it as at a riddle."
"Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought."
"In the dark, time feels different than when it is light."
"One who is always deeply involved in what he is doing is above all embarrassment."
"One should steal only where one cannot rob."