Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.

God too has his hell: it is his love of man.

Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it even with the best right but without inner constraint proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold dangers which life brings with it in any case, not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes lonely, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing one like that comes to grief, this happens so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it nor sympathize. And he cannot go back any longer.

The worst enemy you can meet will always be yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caverns and forests.

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!

Only where there are graves are there resurrections.

That time does not run backward, that is its wrath; "That which was"--that is the name of the stone it cannot roll.

It might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who would know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of spirit should be measured according to how much of the "truth" one could still barely endure--or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.

My wisdom has long accumulated like a cloud, it becomes stiller and darker. So does all wisdom which shall one day bear lightnings.

It takes more courage to make an end than to make a new verse: all physicians and poets know that.

Words are acoustical signs for concepts; concepts, however, are more or less definite image signs for often recurring and associated sensations, for groups of sensations. To understand one another, it is not enough that one use the same words; one also has to use the same words for the same species of inner experiences; in the end one has to have one's experiences in common.

I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it is cooked through do I welcome it as my food.

A human being who strives for something great considers everyone he meets on his way either as a means or as a delay and obstacle--or as a temporary resting place.

It is the good war that hallows every cause.

To ordain the future in advance in this way, man must first have learned to distinguish necessary events from chance ones, to think causally, to see and anticipate distant eventualities as if they belonged to the present, to decide with certainty what is the goal and what the means to it, and in general be able to calculate and compute.

Ah, only he who knows where he sails, knows what wind is good, and a fair wind for him.

Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. These people abstain, to be sure: but the bitch Sensuality leers enviously out of all that they do. This restless beast follows them even into the heights of their virtue and into the depths of their cold spirit.

Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a way of embracing happiness as if they wanted to crush and suffocate it, from jealousy: alas, they know only too well that it will flee.

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage--his name is self.

And life itself spoke this secret to me. "Behold," it said, "I am that which must ever overcome itself."

More and more it seems to me that the philosopher, being of necessity a man of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, has always found himself, and had to find himself, in contradiction to his today: his enemy was ever the ideal of today. So far all these extraordinary furtherers of men whom one calls philosophers, though they themselves have rarely felt like friends of wisdom but rather like disagreeable fools and dangerous question marks, have found their task, their hard, unwanted, inescapable task, but eventually also the greatness of their task, in being the bad conscience of their time.

Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.

Sex: a sweet poison only to the withered, but to the lion-willed the great cordial and the reverently reserved wine of wines.

It is the stillest words that bring the storm.

Let woman be a plaything, pure and fine, like a precious stone, illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come.

How charming it is that there are words and sounds: are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things eternally separated?

Truly, whoever possesses little is that much less possessed: praised be a little poverty!

There is no devil and no hell. Your soul will be dead even sooner than your body: fear nothing further.

To ordinary human beings, finally--the vast majority who exist for service and the general advantage, and who may exist only for that--religion gives in inestimable contentment with their situation and type, manifold peace of heart, an ennobling of obedience, one further happiness and sorrow with their peers and something transfiguring and beautifying, something of a justification for the whole everyday character, the whole lowliness, the whole half-brutish poverty of their souls. Religion and religious significance spread the splendor of the sun over such ever-toiling human beings and make their own sight tolerable to them.

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Human, All Too Human

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Anti-Christ

Madness is something rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil

"I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually the memory yields.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Beyond Good and Evil

A few hours' mountain climbing make of a rogue and a saint two fairly equal creatures.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Human, All Too Human

How many things are now called the worst evil, which are only twelve feet wide and three months long! But some day greater dragons will come into the world.

In solitude there grows what anyone brings into it, the inner beast too. Therefore solitude is inadvisable to many.