Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, is the consequence of courage, of toughness towards oneself, of sincerity to oneself

The strength required for the vision of the most powerful reality is not only compatible with the most powerful strength for action, for monstrous action, for crime - it even presupposes it.

The sexes deceive themselves about one another: the reason being that at bottom they honor and love only themselves (or their ownideal, to express it more agreeably). Thus man wants woman to be peaceable--but woman is essentially, like the cat, not peaceable, however well she may have trained herself to assume the appearance of peace.

Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

the voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls

Time flies apace-we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it.

Brave people may be persuaded to an action by representing it as being more dangerous than it really is.