Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Hunger is the worst of diseases, the body the greatest of pains; if one knows this truly, that is Nirv?na, the highest happiness.
Every life has its years in which one progresses as on a tedious and dusty street of poplars, without caring to know where he is.
[I]n every part of this eastern world, from Pekin to Damascus, the popular teachers of moral wisdom have immemorially been poets.
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.
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?
Without a belief in personal immortality, religion surely is like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
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!
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.
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.
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.
I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.
To one who is accustomed to thinking a lot, every new thought that he hears or reads about immediately appears as a link in a chain.
Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
When the evil deed, after it has become known, brings sorrow to the fool, then it destroys his bright lot, nay, it cleaves his head.
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
He who knows himself to be profound endeavors to be clear; he who would like to appear profound to the crowd endeavors to be obscure.
Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster.
He who rejoices even at the stake triumphs not over pain but over the absence of pain where he had anticipated feeling it. A parable.
Virtues are dangerous as vices insofar as they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and not as qualities one develops oneself.
Thus do I want man and woman to be: the one fit to wage war and the other fit to give birth, but both fit to dance with head and feet.
Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.
He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.
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.
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
What ought to be done is neglected, what ought not to be done is done; the desires of unruly, thoughtless people are always increasing.
Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, is the consequence of courage, of toughness towards oneself, of sincerity to oneself
What is the task of higher education? To make a man into a machine. What are the means employed? He is taught how to suffer being bored.
...lust is only a sweet poison for the weakling, but for those who will with a lion's heart it is the reverently reserved wine of wines.
Whoever regards human beings as a herd and flees them as swiftly as he can will no doubt be overtaken by them and impaled on theirhorns.
Even in heavenly pleasures he finds no satisfaction, the disciple who is fully awakened delights only in the destruction of all desires.
There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.
I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!
They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer; and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence - not detachment and objectivity.
Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night.
There are two types of genius; one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth.
One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!
To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and above all not a day earlier - that is the only way to keep joy pure.
But thought is one thing, the deed is another, and the image of the deed still another: the wheel of causality does not roll between them.
Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.
The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: "Am I a dishonest player?" - for he is willing to succumb.
He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.
With one more talent one frequently stands with greater instability than with one less, as a table stands better on three legs than on four.
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.