To tell my story I have to start far in the past. If I could, I’d have to go back much farther yet, to the very earliest years of my childhood and even beyond them to my distant origins. Demian

Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again--- the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (---that is English!): the weak possess more mind. ... To acquire mind, one must need mind---one loses it when one no longer needs it. [Criticism of Darwin's Origin of Species.] Twilight of the Idols

How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how hard it is in life! Seagull

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal force in the heart of man: one very reasonably tells the man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of avoiding it; the other even more reasonable says that it is too painful and harassing to think of the danger, since it is not a man's power to provide for everything and escape from the general march of events; and that it is therefore better to turn aside from the painful subject till it has come, and to think of what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally yields to the first voice; in society to the second. War and Peace