Man is an animal very delicately balanced. He has one prime necessity – to survive. To advance too quickly is as fatal as to lag behind. He must survive! He must, perhaps, retain some of the old savagery, but he must not – no definitely he must not – deify it!
Man is always a prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.
Man is a vain animal.
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman — a rope over an abyss.
Man himself is not a finished creation; if he were, God would not Be.
Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on to him and they still give him much trouble at times.
Man flows at once to God when the channel of purity is open.
Man dies in despair while the Spirit dies in ecstasy.
Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not fear it possesses all.[Ничем не может владеть человек, пока он боится смерти. А кто не боится ее, тому принадлежит всё.]
Male and female represent the two sides of the great radical dualism. But, in fact, they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman.
Love makes you want to be a better man. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.
Love is sweet, dearest Ned, but it cannot change a man’s nature.
