There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.
Antithesis is the narrow gateway through which error most prefers to worm its way towards truth.
Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.
Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes – and calls it his pride.
It is only when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers that we comprehend how meaningless followers are.
Among twelve apostles there must always be one who is as hard as stone, so that the new church may be built upon him.
One who has given up any hope of winning a fight or has clearly lost it wants his style in fighting to be admired all the more.
Everything good is the transmutation of something evil: every god has a devil for a father.
One should only question gods where none but gods can reply.
But let me open up my heart to you completely, my friends: if there were gods, how could I bear not being a god! Hence, there areno gods. I drew this conclusion, to be sure – but now it draws me.
Precisely this is godliness – that there are gods, but no God.
In order to be somebody you have to hold even your shadow in high regard.
The way to transmute your iron duty into gold in everyone’s eyes is this: always deliver more than you promise.
He who possesses greatness is cruel towards his secondary virtues and considerations.
Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.
We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!
When there is a choice about it, a great sacrifice is preferable to a small sacrifice, because we compensate ourselves for a greatone with self-admiration, which is not possible with a small one.
I too have been in the underworld, as was Odysseus, and I will often be there again; not only sheep have I sacrificed so as to beable to speak with a few dead souls, but neither have I spared my own blood as well.
We take a fancy to something: and scarcely have we thoroughly taken a fancy to it when that tyrant in us calls out: “Give me thatin sacrifice” – and we give it.
If a man wishes to become a hero, then the serpent must first become a dragon: otherwise he lacks his proper enemy.