That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good - the atavism of an old ideal.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them, is not something dreadful also.

I call a lie: wanting not to see something one does see, wanting not to see something as one sees it... The most common lie is the lie one tells to oneself; lying to others is relatively the exception.

Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be sinning.

Life is fountain of joy; but where the rabble also gather to drink, all wells are poisoned.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The 'thing in itself' (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for.