A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still

A light has dawned for me: I need companions, living ones, not dead companions and corpses which I carry with me wherever I wish. But I need living companions who follow me because they want to follow themselves— and who want to go where I want to go.

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to preserve such a friendship - that no doubt requires the assistance of a slight physical antipathy

to have to combat one’s instincts—that is the formula for decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness and instinct are one.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.