All things that are truly great are at first thought impossible.

Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence.

All idealism is falsehood in the face of necessity.

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.

O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: that which is falling should also be pushed!

Memory says, 'I did that.' Pride replies, 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields.

Immortal is the moment when I engendered the recurrence. For the sake of this moment I bear the recurrence.