We come to recognize that playfulness, as a philosophical stance, can be very serious indeed; and moreover, that it possesses an unfailing capacity to arouse ridicule and hostility in those among us who crave certainty, reverence, and restraint.

I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.

Brave people may be persuaded to an action by representing it as being more dangerous than it really is.

For it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified.

Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.

When on a Sunday morning we hear the old bells ring out, we ask ourselves, "Is it possible! This is done on account of a Jew crucified two thousand years ago who said he was the Son of God. The proof of such an assertion is wanting".

O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in "the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely-"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"-I wager he finds nothing!