The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself.

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

I teach you the Overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? ... The time has come for man to set himself a goal. The time has come to plant the seed to his highest hope.

What do we have in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew lies on its body?

One must never have spared oneself, one must have acquired hardness as a habit to be cheerful and in good spirits in the midst of nothing but hard truths.

The job of rearing a child consists of making conscious activities unconscious.