In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless.

Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence.

One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.

Whom do you call bad?--Those who always want to induce shame.

Madness is the result not of uncertainty but certainty.

There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs. And when the lambs whisper among themselves, "These birds of prey are evil, and does this not give us a right to say that whatever is the opposite of a bird of prey must be good," there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument-though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, We have nothing against these good lambs; in fact, we love them; nothing tastes better than a tender lamb.

I can still stand on life's narrowest footing: but who would I be were I to show you this art. Would you like to see a ropedancer?