Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist.

The real question is: How much truth can I stand?

Many deeds are done so as to forget another deed: there are also opiate activities. I exist so that another will be forgotten.

We have no organ at all for knowledge, for truth: we know (or believe or imagine) precisely as much as may be useful in the interest of the human herd, the species: and even what is here called usefulness is in the end only a belief, something imagined and perhaps precisely that most fatal piece of stupidity by which we shall one day perish.

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss.

Life is that which must overcome itself again and again

To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher.