"Knowing one's 'individuality'. - We are too prone to forget that in the eyes of people who are seeing us for the first time we are something quite different from what we consider ourselves to be: usually we are nothing more than a single individual trait which leaps to the eye and determines the whole impression that we make."

"There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing."

"The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you."

"The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself."

"When one has not had a good father one must create one."

"Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances."

"There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths."

"To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them."

"One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa-- blessing it rather than in love with it."

"We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent."

"We are noble, good, beautiful, and happy!"

"There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude."

"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."

"The discerning one walketh amongst men as amongst animals."

"The conviction reigns that it is only through the sacrifices and accomplishments of the ancestors that the tribe exists--and that one has to pay them back with sacrifices and accomplishments; one thus recognizes a debt that constantly grows greater, since these forebears never cease, in their continued existence as powerful spirits, to accord the tribe new advantages and new strength."

"We suffer from the malady of words, and have no trust in any feeling that is not stamped with its special word."

"A promise to love someone forever, then, means, 'As long as I love you I will render unto you the actions of love; if I no longer love you, you will continue to receive the same actions from me, if for other motives.' Thus the illusion remains in the minds of one's fellow men that the love is unchanged and still the same."

"Let the young soul survey its own life with a view of the following question: 'What have you truly loved thus far? What has ever uplifted your soul, what has dominated and delighted it at the same time?"

"If you invest all your energy in economics, world commerce, parliamentarianism, military engagements, power and power politics, -if you take the quantum of intelligence, seriousness, will, and self-overcoming that you embody and expend it all in this one direction, there there won't be any left for the other direction. Culture and the state - let us be honest with ourselves - these are adversaries."

"They are now informing me that not only are they better than the powerful, the masters of the world whose spittle they have to lick (not from fear, not at all from fear! but because God orders them to honour those in authority) " not only are they better, but they have a "better time, or at least will have a better time one day. But enough! enough! I can't bear it any longer. Bad air! Bad air! This workshop where ideals are fabricated " it seems to me just to stink of lies."

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking."

"Early in the morning, at break of day, in all the freshness and dawn of one's strength, to read a book " I call that viciousness!"

"God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight."

"Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy--ah, they know only too well that it will flee from them!"

"I obviously do everything to be "hard to understand" myself."

"Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession."

"It is not the victory of science that distinguishes our nineteenth century, but the victory of scientific method over science."

"Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?"

"In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad."

"All good things are powerful stimulants to life, even a good book written against life."

"Every characteristic absence of spirituality, every piece of common vulgarity, is due to an inability to resist a stimulus - you have to react, you follow every impulse."

"To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival."

"To be incapable of taking one's enemies, one's accidents, even one's misdeeds seriously for very long - that is the sign of strong full natures in whom there is an excess of power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. Mirabeau had no memory for insults and vile actions done to him and was unable to forgive simply because he - forgot. Such a man shakes off with a single shrug the many vermin that eat deep into others."

"There is something the child sees that he does not see; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this something is the most important thing of all. Because he does not understand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's and more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever wrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers in unravelling the knots."

"I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his "divine service.""

"Solitude has seven skins, nothing gets through any more."

"Youth is an unpleasant period, for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever."

"Speaking generally punishment hardens and numbs it produces concentration it sharpens the consciousness of alienation it strengthens the power of resistance."

"The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity."

"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."

"There is one path in the world that none can walk but you. Where does it lead? Don't ask, walk!"

"Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities."

"On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow."

"When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us."

"The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions, they cease to be mind."

"This woman is beautiful and clever: but how much cleverer she would have become if she were not beautiful!"

"There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy."

"The voice of beauty speaks softly, it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls."

"For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child."

"This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves."