Man demands truth and fulfills this demand in moral intercourse with other men; this is the basis of all social life. One anticipates the unpleasant consequences of reciprocal lying. From this there arises the duty of truth. We permit epic poets to lie because we expect no detrimental consequences in this case. Thus the lie is permitted where it is considered something pleasant. Assuming that it does no harm, the lie is beautiful and charming.

You may have enemies whom you hate, but not enemies whom you despise. You must be proud of your enemy: then the success of your enemy shall be your success too.

The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling on its own, a prime movement, a sacred Yes.

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.

[Heraclitus had] pride not in logical knowledge but rather in intuitive grasping of the truth.

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at five or six great men- yes, and then to get around them.

Light for some time to come will have to be called darkness.