Pity is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride and have no prospect of great conquests; for them the easy prey - and that is what all who suffer are - is enchanting.

The higher its type, the more rarely a thing succeeds.

When one rows it is not the rowing which moves the ship: rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

It was Christianity, with its heartfelt resentment against life, that first made something unclean of sexuality: it threw filth on the origin, on the essential fact of our life.

Whoever commits to paper what he suffers becomes a melancholy author: but he becomes a serious author when he tells us what he suffered and why he now reposes in joy.

The transition from Religion to Scientific contemplation is a violent, dangerous leap, which is not to be recommended. In order to make this transition, art is far rather to be employed to relieve the mind overburdened with emotions. Out of the illogical comes much good. It is so firmly rooted in the passions, in language, in art, in religion, and generally in everything which gives value to life. It is only the naive people who can believe that the nature of man can be changed into a purely logical one. We have yet to learn that others can suffer, and this can never be completely learned.