That little hypocrites and half-crazed people dare to imagine that on their account the laws of nature are constantly broken; such an enhancement of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet Christianity owes its triumph to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity.

If a man wishes to become a hero, then the serpent must first become a dragon: otherwise he lacks his proper enemy.

Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.

He who is usually self-sufficient becomes exceptionally vain and keenly alive to fame and praise when he is physically ill. The more he loses himself the more he has to endeavor to regain his position by means of the opinion of others.

The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, as instinct.

Not with wrath do we kill, but with laughter. Come, let us kill the spirit of gravity!

But thought is one thing, the deed is another, and the image of the deed still another: the wheel of causality does not roll between them.