With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause -- a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.

How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.

To have to fight the instincts - that is the definition of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.

Do you want to have an easy life? Then always stay with the herd and lose yourself in the herd.

We attack not only to hurt someone, to defeat him, but perhaps also simply to become conscious of our own strength.

Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.

We must beware of one who is in a passion against us as of one who has once sought our life; for the fact that we still live is due to the absence of power to kill, - if looks could kill, we should have been dead long ago.