What have we in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew is lying upon it?

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind?--They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

Human existence basically is──a never to be completed imperfect tense.

One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.

Man has been reared by his errors: first he never saw himself other than imperfectly, second he attributed to himself imaginary qualities, third he felt himself in a false order of rank with animal and nature, fourth he continually invented new tables of values and for a time took each of them to be eternal and unconditional...If one deducts the effect of these four errors, one has also deducted away humanity, humaneness, and 'human dignity'.