At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?.
It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.
The Hour-Hand of Life --- Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea - all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life.
God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we - we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
We seldom break a leg as long as we are climbing wearily upwards in our lives, instead we do it when we start going easy on ourselves and choosing the comfortable paths.
How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.