If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs. - Friedrich Nietzsche

A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.

Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all pos­sessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to con­struct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole

For fanaticism is the only form of willpower that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain.