One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.

One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.

Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up.

Religious War has signified the greatest advance of the masses so far, for it proves that the masses have begun to treat concepts with respect.

It is only when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers that we comprehend how meaningless followers are.

Their usual mistaken premise is that they affirm some consensus among people, at least among tame peoples, concerning certain moral principles, and then conclude that these principles must be unconditionally binding also for you and me-or conversely, they see that among different peoples moral valuations are necessarily different and infer from this that no morality is binding-both of which are equally childish.

Desire is happiness: satisfaction as happiness is merely the ultimate moment of desire. To be wish and wish alone is happiness, and a new wish over and over again.