When Zarathustra was alone . . . he said to his heart: "Could it be possible! This old saint in the forest hath not yet heard of it, that God is dead!"

The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.

From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

On all the walls, wherever walls exist, I will inscribe this eternal indictment of Christianity--I have letters to make even blindmen see.... I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough--I call it mankind's single immortal blemish.... And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose--following Christianity's first day!--Why not following its last day, instead?--Following today?--Transvaluation of all values!

Those with certain temperaments find no way to endure themselves except by striving towards going under.