Quote collection
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"At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the hardest service. What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart...that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience."
"To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality."
"I despise mystics, they fancy themselves so deep, when they aren't even superficial."
"To find everything profound - that is an inconvenient trait. It makes one strain one's eyes all the time, and in the end one finds more than one might have wished."
"Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence - not detachment and objectivity."
"The higher you ascend, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. But most of all they hate those who fly."
"Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter- writer."
"Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal."
"It is absolutely impossible for a subject to see or have insight into something while leaving itself out of the picture, so impossible that knowing and being are the most opposite of all spheres."
"One does not hate so long as one continues to rate low, but only when one has come to rate equal or higher."
"The inclination to self-depreciation, to freely accepting being robbed, being duped, and being swindled, could be the modesty of a god among men."
"There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane."
"Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected to hide!"
"One does not know - cannot know - the best that is in one."
"Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience."
"Strength is the morality of the man who stands out from the rest, and it is mine."
"One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!"
"Philosophical systems are wholly true for their founders only."
"A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness."
"Our destiny exercises its influence over us even when, as yet, we have not learned its nature: it is our future that lays down the law of our today"