By narcissism is meant ceasing to have an authentic interest in the outside world but instead an intense attachment to oneself, to one's own group, clan, religion, nation, race, etc. - with consequent serious distortions of rational judgment. In general, the need for narcissistic satisfaction derives from the necessity to compensate for material and cultural poverty.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

No one should be judge in his own cause.

Assembled in a crowd, people lose their powers of reasoning and their capacity for moral choice.

It goes without saying that any persons may attempt to unite kindred spirits, but, whatever their hopes and longings, none have the right to impose their vision of unity upon the rest.

Men may one day feel that they are partakers of a common nature, and that true freedom and perfect equity, like food and air, are pregnant with benefit to every constitution.

Existential envy which is directed against the other person's very nature, is the strongest source of ressentiment. It is as if it whispers continually: "I can forgive everything, but not that you are- that you are what you are-that I am not what you are-indeed that I am not you." This form of envy strips the opponent of his very existence, for this existence as such is felt to be a "pressure," a "reproach," and an unbearable humiliation. In the lives of great men there are always critical periods of instability, in which they alternately envy and try to love those whose merits they cannot but esteem. Only gradually, one of these attitudes will predominate. Here lies the meaning of Goethe's reflection that "against another's great merits, there is no remedy but love."

I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times, but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it.

The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live - moreover, the only one.

The task of power is to transform the always possible 'no' into a 'yes.'

I forbid you to be cast down or depressed. It is not enough if you do not shrink from work; ask for it.

The philosopher will ask himself ... if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.

A schoolteacher or professor cannot educate individuals, he educates only species.

Crime in full glory consolidates authority by the sacred fear it inspires.

Time is the soul of this world.

Q. You do not consider your statement a disloyal one? A. No, sir. Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. Q. You are sure that your statement represents scientific truth? A. I am.

In brief, it is my thesis that human misery is the most urgent problem of a rational public policy and that happiness is not such a problem.

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

There is only one way to science-or to philosophy... to meet a problem, to see its beauty and fall in love with it; to get married to it, and to live with it happily, till death do ye part-unless you should meet another... more fascinating problem, or... obtain a solution. But even if you do... you may... discover, to your delight, the... a whole family of enchanting... perhaps difficult problem children for whose welfare you may work, with a purpose, to the end of your days.

Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.

In limitations he first shows himself the master,And the law can only bring us freedom.

We set the treatment of bodies so high above the treatment of souls, that the physician occupies a higher place in society than the school-master. The governess is to have every one of God's gifts; she is to do that which the mother herself is incapable of doing; but our son must not degrade himself by marrying the governess, nor our daughter the tutor, though she might marry the medical man.

A brilliant man is his own best company, unless he can find other company of the same sort.

...it is the peculiar and perpetual error of the human understanding to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives...

With the sense of sight, the idea communicates the emotion, whereas, with sound, the emotion communicates the idea, which is more direct and therefore more powerful.

The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom.

Of all passions, that which inclineth men least to break the laws is fear.

He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.

Shakespeare wrote better poetry for not knowing too much; Milton, I think, knew too much finally for the good of his poetry.

One should be wary of assuming that we're the folk who can properly look after ourselves, whereas our descendants, if they become genetically pre-programmed ecstatics, will get trapped in robot-serviced states of infantile dependence. For it shouldn't be forgotten that exuberantly happy people also have a fierce will to survive. They love life dearly. They take on daunting challenges against seemingly impossible odds. One of the hallmarks of many endogenous depressive states, on the other hand, is so-called behavioural despair. If one learns that apparently no amount of effort can rescue one from an aversive stimulus, then one tends to sink into a lethargic stupor. This syndrome of "learned helplessness" may persist even when the opportunity to escape from the nasty stimulus subsequently arises.

Reason ... contradicts the established order of men and things on behalf of existing societal forces that reveal the irrational character of this order - for "rational" is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.

The 'open' mind of the poet and artist can sense realities beyond the reach of our normal senses. The real problem is that our materialistic assumptions have a number of false premises built into them: it is only when we recognize this that we see there is no sharp dividing line between the everyday world and the invisible world of the clairvoyant.

I never knew a writer's wife who wasn't beautiful.

The Idea of Cause is expressed for purposes of science by these three Axioms:-'Every Event must have a Cause':-'Causes are measured by their Effects':-'Reaction is equal and opposite to Action'.

If it be of the highest importance to man, as an individual, that his religion should be true, the case of society is not the same. Society has no future life to hope for or to fear; and provided the citizens profess a religion, the peculiar tenets of that religion are of very little importance to its interests. Variant translation: Though it is very important for man as an individual that his religion should be true, that is not the case for society. Society has nothing to fear or hope from another life; what is most important for it is not that all citizens profess the true religion but that they should profess religion.

The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. ... An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility.

...the impossible must be supposed in order to explain the superdetermination of the event

So far as it goes, a small thing may give an analogy of great things, and show the tracks of knowledge.

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

By surpassing writing, we have regained our wholeness, not on a national or cultural but cosmic plane.

The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself: in science, at least, his respect for authority is on the whole beneficial.

Where danger shews it self, apprehension cannot, without stupidity, be wanting; where danger is, sense of danger should be; and so much fear as should keep us awake, and excite our attention, industry, and vigour; but not to disturb the calm use of our reason, nor hinder the execution of what that dictates.

The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions.