Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster.

Here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master… Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and go? ‘Thou shalt’ is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, ‘I will.

...one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by anyone.

The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.

Whether we immoralists do any harm to virtue?-Just as little as anarchists do to princes. It is only because they have been shot at that they once again sit securely on their thrones. Moral: we must shoot at morals.

The most instructive experiences are those of everyday life.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it