“What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure - as a mere automaton of duty?”

“Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.”

“As long as a man knows very well the strength and weaknesses of his teaching, his art, his religion, its power is still slight. The pupil and apostle who, blinded by the authority of the master and by the piety he feels toward him, pays no attention to the weaknesses of a teaching, a religion, and soon usually has for that reason more power than the master. The influence of a man has never yet grown great without his blind pupils. To help a perception to achieve victory often means merely to unite it with stupidity so intimately that the weight of the latter also enforces the victory of the former.”

“in truth man is polluted river. one must be a sea to receive a polluted river without becoming defiled.”

“The sum of the inner movements which a man finds easy and as a consequence performs gracefully and with pleasure, one calls his soul; if these inner movements are plainly difficult and an effort for him, he is considered soulless.”

“Not necessity, not desire- no, the love of power isthe demon of men.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”