A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.

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

Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say marvelously simplified Christianity. A god who in his love arranges everything in a manner that in the end will be best for us; a god who gives to us and takes from us our virtue and our happiness, so that as a whole all is meet and fit and there is no reason for us to take life sadly, let alone exclaim against it; in short, resignation and modest demands elevated to godhead

Whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

Few serve truth in truth because only few have the pure will to be just, and of those again very few have the strength to be just.

But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had-power.