Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed; - history treats almost exclusively of these bad men who subsequently became good men!
The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd.
We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!
When anyone apologizes to us he has to do it very expertly: otherwise we might easily come to see ourselves as the guilty party and experience unpleasant feelings.
A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses.
The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is surely not a secret.
It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.
The elimination of the will altogether and the switching off of the emotions all and sundry, is tantamount to the elimination of reason: intellectual castration.
Every society has a tendency to reduce it's opponents to caricatures.
Some men are born posthumously.
Master-morality and Slave-morality.
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.
Those that achieve anything that looks beyond the vision and thinking of their peers provoke jealousy and hatred disguised as the ordinary.
Sit as little as possible. Give no credence to any thought thatwas not born outdoors while moving about freely.
That the world is not the embodiment of an eternal rationality can be conclusively proved by the fact that the piece of the worldthat we know--I mean our human reason--is not so very rational. And if it is not eternally and completely wise and rational, then the rest of the world will not be either; here the conclusion a minori ad majus, a parte ad totum applies, and does so with decisive force.
Immature is the love of the youth, and immature his hatred of man and earth. His mind and the wings of his spirit are still tied down and heavy.
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
We are in the greatest danger of being run over when we have just gotten out of the way of a carriage.
The value of many men and books rests solely on their faculty for compelling all to seek out the most hidden and intimate things.
Contentment preserves one from catching cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well dressed ever caught a cold? No, not even when she had scarcely a rag on her back.
The universe without music would be madness.
If you are too weak to give yourselves your own law, then a tyrant shall lay his yoke upon you and say: "Obey! Clench your teeth and obey!" And all good and evil shall be drowned in obedience to him.
The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors; they are enormously dangerous and hence enormously fascinating.
A book is made better by good readers and clearer by good opponents.
He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but over the absence of pain where he had anticipated feeling it. A parable.
Time is a great legalizer, even in the field of morals
Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-horse.
What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe. It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.
All American wars (except the Civil War) have been fought with the odds overwhelmingly in favor of the Americans. In the history of armed combat such affairs as the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars must be ranked, not as wars at all, but as organized assassinations. In the two World Wars, no American faced a bullet until his adversaries had been worn down by years of fighting others.
Men inadvertently comport themselves with nobility when they have grown accustomed to wanting nothing from others and always giving to them.
One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
I think the Negro people should feel secure enough by now to face a reasonable ridicule without terror. I am unalterably opposed to all efforts to put down free speech, whatever the excuse.
How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!--and such reverence is a bridge to love.--For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture "the enemy" as the man of ressentiment conceives him--and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy," "the Evil One," and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a "good one"--himself!
A man unconsciously imagines that where he is strong, where he feels most thoroughly alive, the element of his freedom must lie.
We attack not only to hurt someone, to defeat him, but perhaps also simply to become conscious of our own strength.
As a result, nature is something entirely different from what comes to mind when we invoke its name.
Men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play.
Man's maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.
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?
Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.
The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.
Debussy--A pretty girl with one blue eye and one brown one.
I feel all those human beings to be pernicious who can no longer oppose what they love: they thereby ruin the best things and people.
To learn from our enemies is the best pathway to loving them: for it makes us grateful to them.
Sometimes it is harder to accede to a thing than it is to see its truth.
The best way to give assistance to those who are deeply embarrassed and to calm them down is to praise them decisively.
One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power.
I am almost equal to a shadow.
For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer.
How did reason come into the world? As is fitting, in an irrational manner, by accident. One will have to guess at it as at a riddle.
Yet tell me, my brothers: if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there not still lacking--humanity itself?
It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.
One is healthy when one can laugh at the earnestness and zeal with which one has been hypnotized by any single detail of one's life.
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!
Where do your greatest dangers lie?--In pity.
Our drives are reducible to the will to power. The will to power is the ultimate fact at which we arrive.
Can an ass be tragic?--To perish under a burden that one can neither bear nor cast off? The case of the philosopher.
A book should long for pen, ink, and writing-table: but usually it is pen, ink, and writing-table that long for a book. That is why books are so negligible nowadays.
Life is hard to bear: but do not affect to be so delicate! We are all of us fine sumpter asses and assesses.
