I love the valiant; but it is not enough to wield a broadsword, one must also know against whom.

"This - is now my way - where is yours"? Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way". For the way - it does not exist!

With regard to philosophical metaphysics, I always see increasing numbers who have attained to the negative goal, but as yet few who climb a few rungs backwards; one ought to look out, perhaps, over the last steps of the ladder, but not try to stand upon them.

A living being seeks, above all, to discharge its strength. Life is will to power.

It is a prejudice to think that morality is more favourable to the development of reason than immorality.

With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause -- a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.

Mozart, the last chord of a centuries-old great European taste.