In the world of high finance the shilling of the idle rich man can buy more than that of the poor, industrious man.
It is only those who know how to feel that "this is not good" who devise improvements.
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives acts and experiences otherwise than we do?
Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.
The radical hostility, the deadly hostility against sensuality, is always a symptom to reflect on: it entitles us to suppositions concerning the total state of one who is excessive in this manner.
It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.
It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong.
At the beginning of a marriage ask yourself whether this woman will be interesting to talk to from now until old age. Everything else in marriage is transitory: most of the time is spent in conversation.
And because I love this lifeI know I shall love death as wellThe child cries out whenFrom the right breast the motherTakes it away, in the very next momentTo find in the left oneIts consolation.
Faced with a world of "modern ideas" which would like to banish everyone into a corner and a "specialty," a philosopher, if there could be a philosopher these days, would be compelled to establish the greatness of mankind, the idea of "greatness," on the basis of his own particular extensive range and multiplicity, his own totality in the midst of diversity.
Idleness is the beginning of all psychology. What? Could it be that psychology is ? a vice?
The Taj Mahal rises above the banks of the river like a solitary tear suspended on the cheek of time.
This is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to--become evil!
Concerning great things one should either be silent or speak loftily.
The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.
Great things demand that we either remain silent about them or speak in a great manner: in a great manner, that is-cynically and with innocence.
Every man in creating the beautiful appearance of the dream worlds is a perfect artist.
Joy wants the eternity of all things, wants deep, wants deep eternity.
The stars are not afraid to appear like fireflies.
In a certain state it is indecent to live longer.
Just as soon as we notice that someone has to force himself to pay attention when dealing and talking with us, we have a valid demonstration that he does not love us or that he does not love us anymore.
Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters.
But like infection is the petty thought: it creeps and hides, and wants to be nowhere--until the whole body is decayed and withered by the petty infection... Thus spoke Zarathustra.
You lovers of knowledge! So what have you done out of your love of knowledge up to now? Have you already stolen and murdered so as to know how a thief and a murderer feels?
The real frienship is like fluorescence, it shines better when everything has darken.
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.
We deceive ourselves when giving respect to the person for whom we have surrendered ourselves, when we respectively expect them to be as we would wish them to be.
The weak and misbegotten shall perish: first principle of our brotherly love. And they shall be given every assistance.
I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
The beating of drums, which delights young writers who serve a party, sounds to him who does not belong to the party line like a rattling of chains, and excites sympathy rather than admiration.
A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth, but only his Ariadne.
If you are considering marriage, ask yourself one question: Will I still enjoy talking with her when I'm old?
Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.
What a person is begins to betray itself when his talent weakens--when he stops showing what he can do. Talent, too, is ornamentation, and ornamentation, too, is a hiding place.
that which is eternal within the moment only becomes shallow if spread out in time.
Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.
Art is the proper task of life.
Women are considered deep - why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.
Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.
Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.
The hour-hand of life.
I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did.
In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought.
It is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the individual.
We are so fond of being out among nature, because it has no opinions about us.
Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches and in punishment there is so much that is festive!
No artist will tolerate the world for one second as it is.
Let not the hours pass by in the dark. Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.
Work, especially good work, becomes easy only when desire has learnt to discipline itself.
I have given a name to my pain, and call it "dog".
Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night.
Your educators can only be your liberators.
They climb the mountain like beasts, stupid and sweating; it seems that no one bothered to tell them that there are beautiful vistas along the way.
You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive you for that.
Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.
The surest aid in combating the male's disease of self-contempt is to be loved by a clever woman.
That every will must consider every other will its equal would be a principle hostile to life, an agent of the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path to nothingness.
A thought comes when it will, not when I will.
Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary.
The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing--that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.
