The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.

Happiness is a fata morgana. the only way to not end up unhappy is to not long for happiness.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

It is our taste that decides against Christianity now, no longer our reasons.

No power can be maintained when it is only represented by hypocrites.

Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has passed even more deeply into the tissue of modernity: the concept of the 'equality of souls before God.' This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights.

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.