Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Truth as Circe. - Error has transformed animals into men; is truth perhaps capable of changing man back into an animal?
In the end we are always rewarded for our good will, our patience, fair-mindedness, and gentleness with what is strange.
Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.
Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.
It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle. Leaving out the third case: one must be both - a philosopher.
If Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is dealing with men.
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
Sometimes all you need to do to win clever people over to a principle is to present it in the form of a shocking paradox.
What really raises one's indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering
Untroubled, scornful, outrageous - that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior.
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
What really raises one's indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.
Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.
It is obvious that all sense has gone out of modern marriage; which is, however, no objection to marriage but to modernity.
Follow in the footsteps of your fathers' virtue! How could you hope to climb high unless your fathers' will climbs with you?
The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual and he does not call it poison.
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.
The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong.
If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
Some people appear to be more meager in talent than they are, just because the tasks they set themselves are always too great.
The same passions in man and woman nonetheless differ in tempo; hence man and woman do not cease misunderstanding one another.
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 great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.
Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.
A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.
The word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Have you noticed there are no interesting people in heaven? -Just a hint to the girls as to where they can find their salvation.
The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow.
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
Truth will have no gods before it.- The belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in which one has previously believed.
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.
This mother needs happy, reputable children, and that one needs unhappy ones: otherwise she cannot show her kindness as a mother.
I understand by 'freedom of spirit' something quite definite - the unconditional will to say No, where it is dangerous to say No.
There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them.
Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.
There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated
The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.
How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? ... that became for me more and more the real measure of value.
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
I teach the No to all that makes weak--that exhausts. I teach the Yes to all that strengthens, that stores up strength, that pride.
I live in my own place - have never copied anyone even half, and at any master who lacks the grace - to laugh at himself - I laugh.
And let that day be lost to us on which we did not dance once! And let that wisdom be false to us that brought no laughter with it!