“Only the lower natures forget themselves and become something new. Thus the butterfly has entirely forgotten that it was a caterpillar, perhaps it may in turn so entirely forget it was a butterfly that is becomes a fish.”

“One becomes weary only of what is new.”

“Now she has power and passion and the struggle has significance for me-let the momentary consequences be what they may. Suppose that in her pride she becomes giddy, suppose that she does break with me-all right! -she has her freedom, but she will still belong to me. That the engagement should bind her is silly-I want to possess her only in her freedom”

“Don't forget to love yourself.”

“The misfortune of our time is just this, that it has become simply nothing else but 'time', the temporal, which is impatient of hearing anything about eternity.”

“Spiritual superiority only sees the individual. But alas, ordinarily we human beings are sensual and, therefore, as soon as it is a gathering, the impression changes- we see something abstract, the crowd, and we become different. But in the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd, He only sees each individual.”

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.”