And nobody lies as much as the indignant do.
The truthful man ends up realizing that he always lies.
When we stand the truth on its head we generally fail to notice that our head is not standing where it should be standing either.
It is not to everyone’s taste that truth should be pronounced pleasant. But at least let no one believe that error becomes truth when it is pronounced unpleasant.
Perhaps no one as yet has been truthful enough about what “truthfulness” is.
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.
Having become conscious of the truth he once perceived, man now sees only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence, he now understands the symbolic element in Ophelia’s fate, he now recognizes the wisdom of the woodland god, Silenus: it nauseates him.
A martyr’s disciples suffer more than the martyr.
But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does “eternal life” matter, or life at all?
A sure way to irritate people and to put evil thoughts into their heads is to keep them waiting a long time. This makes them immoral.
The people we keep standing in the anteroom of our favor either start fermenting or turn sour.
I know no other way to associate with great tasks than as play: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential presupposition.
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.
Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, “know thyself,” but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.
Childhood and youth are ends in themselves, not stages.
The dyed-in-the-wool teacher takes everything seriously only with respect to his students – himself included.
A noble soul is not the one that can manage the highest flights but the one that rises very little and falls very little but always dwells in a free, resplendent atmosphere and altitude.
Lying very still and thinking very little is the most inexpensive medicine for all the sicknesses of the soul, and when administered with good intentions it grows more and more pleasant with each passing hour.
A person must have a good memory to keep the promises he has made. A person must have a strong imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality tied to the quality of the intellect.
In morality, man treats himself not as individuum but as dividuum.