There was at all events one advantage in the choice of this day to my birth; my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day of public rejoicing.

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.

When gods die, they always die many sorts of death.

Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.

'He who seeks may easily get lost himself. It is a crime to go apart and be alone.' Thus speaks the herd.

We would not let ourselves be burned to death for our opinions: we are not sure enough of them for that.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.