Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.
One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.
A book calls for pen, ink, and a writing desk; today the rule is that pen, ink, and a writing desk call for a book.
I love those who do not know how to live for today.
Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.
The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.
One should not wish to enjoy where one does not give joy.
What we experience in dreams – assuming that we experience it often – belongs in the end just as much to the over-all economy of our soul as anything experienced “actually”: we are richer or poorer on account of it.
Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.
The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation.
Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.
Original minds are not distinguished by being the first to see a new thing, but instead by seeing the old, familiar thing that is over-looked as something new.
A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.
Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.
Everyone who has ever built anywhere a “new heaven” first found the power thereto in his own hell.
By losing your goal, You have lost your way.
Everything matters. Nothing’s important.
The love of truth has its reward in heaven and even on earth.
Love is more afraid of change than destruction.
One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.