Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter- writer.

Speaking is a beautiful folly; with that man dances over all things.

Those people have no real interest in a science who only begin to get excited about it when they themselves have made discoveries in it.

Prejudice of the learned. - The learned judge correctly that people of all ages have believed they know what is good and evil, praise- and blameworthy. But it is a prejudice of the learned that we now know better than any other age.

Man is something that is to be surpassed.

One should not wrongly reify 'cause' and 'effect,' as the natural scientists do (and whoever, like them, now 'naturalizes' in his thinking), according to the prevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it 'effects' its end; one should use 'cause' and 'effect' only as pure concepts, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation and communication-not for explanation.

I know no other way to associate with great tasks than as play: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential presupposition.