Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly.

The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!

Ye are ugly? Well then, my brethren, take the sublime about you, the mantle of the ugly!

With deep men, as with deep wells, it takes a long time for anything that falls into them to hit bottom. Onlookers, who almost never wait long enough, readily suppose that such men are callous and unresponsive--or even boring.

The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual and he does not call it poison.

Among human beings there is no greater banality than death. Second in order, because it is possible to die without being born, comes birth, and next comes marriage.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.