In the end things must be as they are and have always been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.

Nihilism: any aim is lacking, any answer to the question "why" is lacking. What does nihilism mean?--that the supreme values devaluate themselves.

Every step forward is made at the cost of mental and physical pain to someone.

"State," I call it, where they all drink poison, the good and the wicked; "state," where they all lose themselves, the good and the wicked; "state," where they all call their slow suicide-"life."

Sometimes in our relationship to another human being the proper balance of friendship is restored when we put a few grains of impropriety onto our own side of the scale.

One unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of the one by the pain of the other.

Pity makes suffering contagious.