Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.

A refined soul is distressed to know that someone owes it thanks; a crude soul, to know that it owes someone thanks.

The gilded sheath of pity sometimes covers the dagger of envy.

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

The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!

If all alms were given only from pity, all beggars would have starved long ago.

It was modesty that invented the word "philosopher" in Greece and left the magnificent overweening presumption in calling oneselfwise to the actors of the spirit--the modesty of such monsters of pride and sovereignty as Pythagoras, as Plato.