In compassionate men, severity is a virtue.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life.

They climb the mountain like beasts, stupid and sweating; it seems that no one bothered to tell them that there are beautiful vistas along the way.

O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: that which is falling should also be pushed!

The flame is not as bright to itself as it is to those it illuminates: so too the sage.

... art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.