One never perishes through anybody but oneself.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

How did reason come into the world? As is fitting, in an irrational manner, by accident. One will have to guess at it as at a riddle.

Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.

Talking much about oneself may be a way of hiding oneself.

How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which has to be overcome, by the effort it costs to stay aloft. One would have to seek the highest type of free man where the greatest resistance is constantly being overcome: five steps from tyranny, near the threshold of the danger of servitude.

And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.