“Evil men have no songs.” How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?

Through searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The historian looks backwards, and finally he also believes backwards.

Probability but no truth, facility but no freedom--it is owing to these two fruits that the tree of knowledge cannot be confused with the tree of life.

The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

The Gay Science, section 108

At one time or another, almost every politician needs an honest man so badly that, like a ravenous wolf, he breaks into a sheep-fold: not to devour the ram he has stolen, however, but rather to conceal himself behind its wooly back.