The man who sees little always sees less than there is to see; the man who hears badly always hears something more than there is to hear.

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.

No one is such a liar as the indignant man.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

Women are constituted in such a way that all truth (regarding men, love, children, society, the purpose of life) disgusts them, and in such a way that they try to revenge themselves on anyone who opens their eyes.

Beauty is for the artist something outside all orders of rank, because in beauty opposites are tamed; the highest sign of power, namely power over opposites; moreover, without tension: - that violence is no longer needed: that everything follows, obeys, so easily and so pleasantly - that is what delights the artist's WILL TO POWER.

At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.