What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent

Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life: with its own torment it increases its own knowledge. Did you already know that?

Towards gnats and fleas we should show no pity. We would do right to hang petty thieves, petty calumniators, and slanderers.

But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brilliance; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver's glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift-giving virtue is the highest virtue.

Such men alone are my readers, my proper readers, my preordained readers. Of what account are the rest? The rest are simply... humanity. One must be superior to humanity in power, in loftiness of soul- in contempt.

One hears but one does not seek; one takes -- one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, it comes of necessity and unfalteringly formed.

When one thinks profusely and cleverly, not only his face but his body too takes on a clever appearance.