Aphorisms should be peaks - and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

For all things are baptized at the font of eternity, and beyond good and evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but intervening shadows and damp afflictions and passing clouds.

The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day.

Every society has a tendency to reduce it's opponents to caricatures.

When somebody dies we usually need reasons for consolation, not so much to alleviate our pain as to excuse ourselves for so readily feeling consoled.

Every talent must unfold itself in fighting.