When good friends praise a gifted person he often appears to be delighted with them out of politeness and goodwill, but in reality he feels indifferent.

The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower.

Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? oh my friends, then you also said yes to all pain. all things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.

one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.

I want to teach men the sense of their existence, which is the Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud man.

The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruction: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments. Their joy is self-conquest: asceticism becomes in them nature, need, and instinct. Difficult tasks are a privilege to them; to play with burdens that crush others, a recreation. Knowledge-a form of asceticism. They are the most venerable kind of man: that does not preclude their being the most cheerful and the kindliest.

The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.