History teaches that a race of people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and indisputable principles.

People who, out of an inborn moderation, leave every glass standing only half-emptied refuse to admit that everything in the world has its sediments and dregs.

A person must have a good memory to keep the promises he has made. A person must have a strong imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality tied to the quality of the intellect.

It is obvious that all sense has gone out of modern marriage; which is, however, no objection to marriage but to modernity.

I live in my own place - have never copied anyone even half, and at any master who lacks the grace - to laugh at himself - I laugh.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity.

One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge.