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.

You lovers of knowledge! So what have you done out of your love of knowledge up to now? Have you already stolen and murdered so as to know how a thief and a murderer feels?

Kindliness, friendliness, the courtesy of the heart, are ever-flowing streams of non egoistic impulses, and have given far more powerful assistance to culture than even those much more famous demonstrations which are called pity, mercy, and self-sacrifice.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

Whoever knows he is deep tries to be clear, but whoever wants to seem deep to the crowd tries to be obscure. For the crowd supposes that anything it cannot see to the bottom must be deep: it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water.

Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.

The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself.