This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

• Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.
• It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.
• In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
• Mystical explanations are thought to be deep the truth is that they are not even shallow.
• There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
• The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
• War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
• You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
• The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
• Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?