All preachers of morality, as also all theologians have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary.

We can speak very much to the purpose and yet in such a way that the whole world cries out in contradiction: namely, when we are not speaking to the whole world.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! Distrust all those who talk much of their justice!

There are men who desire power simply for the sake of the happiness it will bring; these belong chiefly to political parties.

Marriages that made out of love (so-called "love-matches") have error as their father and misery (necessity) as their mother.

Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.

A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions.