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.

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.

We fear our neighbor's hostile mood because we are afraid that this mood will lead him to penetrate our secrets.

Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

There are expressions and bulls-eyes of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized.

Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.