We do not belong to those who only get their thought from books, or at the prompting of books, – it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful.
Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
If thinking is your fate, revere this fate with divine honour and sacrifice to it the best, the most beloved.
You cannot learn to fly by flying. First you must learn to walk, to run, to climb, to dance.
It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men.
One does not want to be deceived, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived.
When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life.
The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.
Humility has the toughest hide.
Close beside my knowledge lies my black ignorance.
If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.
The future influences the present just as much as the past.
I love the great despisers because they are the great adorers...
Everyone thinks that the principal thing to the tree is the fruit, but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.
The world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else!
A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.
All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.
Call me whatever you like; I am who I must be.
From the Sun I learned this: when he goes down, overrich; he pours gold into the sea out of inexhaustible riches, so that even the poorest fisherman still rows with golden oars. For this I once saw and I did not tire of my tears as I watched it.
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.