There is nothing more necessary than truth, and in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value. This absolute will to truth: what is it? Is it the will to not allow ourselves to be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? One does not want to be deceived, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived.

For as long as they praise you, never forget that it is not yet your own path that you walk, but another person's.

Precisely this is godliness--that there are gods, but no God.

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

Heaping glowing coals on another person's head is usually misunderstood and comes to nothing because the other person knows just as well that he is in the right and has also given some thought on his own part to heaping coals.