Man alone resists the direction of gravitation: he constantly wants to fall – upwards.
What an age experiences as evil is usually an untimely reverberation echoing what was previously experienced as good – the atavismof an older ideal.
Of all evil I deem you capable: therefore I want the good from you.
And if a man goes through fire for his doctrine – what does that prove? Verily, it is more if your own doctrine comes out of your own fire.
You lack the courage to be consumed in flames and to become ashes: so you will never become new, and never young again!
People who feel insecure in social situations never miss a chance to exhibit their dominance over close, submissive friends, whomthey put down publicly, in front of everyone – by teasing, for example.
A person unlearns arrogance when he knows he is always among worthy human beings; being alone fosters presumption. Young people are arrogant because they always associate with their own peers, those who are all really nothing but who would like to be very important.
There are people who are so presumptuous that they know no other way to praise a greatness that they publicly admire than by representing it as a preliminary stage and bridge leading to themselves.
The superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the superman is to be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, be true to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! They are poisoners, whether they know it or not.
Heaping glowing coals on another person’s head is usually misunderstood and comes to nothing because the other person knows just as well that he is in the right and has also given some thought on his own part to heaping coals.
It is only those who know how to feel that “this is not good” who devise improvements.
The golden fleece of self-sufficiency guards against cudgel- blows but not against pin-pricks.
One who is always deeply involved in what he is doing is above all embarrassment.
Help thyself: then everyone will help thee too. Principle of Christian charity.
The condition that gives birth to a rule is not the same as the condition to which the rule gives birth.
Those with certain temperaments find no way to endure themselves except by striving towards going under.
Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.
People buy their necessities in shops and have to pay dearly for them because they have to assist in paying for what is also on sale there but only rarely finds purchasers: the luxury and amusement goods. So it is that luxury continually imposes a tax on the simple people who have to do without it.
Just as a waterfall grows slower and more lightly suspended as it plunges down, so the great man of action tends to act with greater calmness than his tempestuous desires prior to the deed would lead one to expect.
The disgust with dirt can be so great that it keeps us from cleaning ourselves – from “justifying” ourselves.