Immortal is the moment when I engendered the recurrence. For the sake of this moment I bear the recurrence.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

All great men are play actors of their own ideal.

When I contemplated purpose I also contemplated chance and foolishness.

I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful.

The thirst for equality can express itself either as a desire to draw everyone down to one's level, or to raise oneself and everyone else up.