For the longest time, marriage has had a guilty conscience about itself. Should we believe it?--Yes, we should believe it.

Very early in my life I took the question of the relation of art to truth seriously: even now I stand in holy dread in the face of this discordance. My first book was devoted to it. The Birth of Tragedy believes in art on the background of another belief

All words are prejudices.

Men are even lazier than they are timorous, and what they fear most is the troubles with which any unconditional honesty and nudity would burden them.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine.

Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.