To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.

Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.

A life without music is an error.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger, and play dice for death.

The desire for a strong faith is not the proof of a strong faith, rather the opposite. If one has it one may permit oneself the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is secure enough, fixed enough for it.