It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, and the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough - I call it the one immortal blemish on the human race.

The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?

The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.

I am a prelude to better players, O my brothers! An example! Follow my example!

I teach the No to all that makes weak--that exhausts. I teach the Yes to all that strengthens, that stores up strength, that pride.

Curiosity creeps into the houses of the unfortunate and the needy under the name of duty or of pity.