Friedrich Nietzsche

There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause.

It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed.

Whatever is profound loves masks.

The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness against themselves and others, in experiments.

I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I can't believe you.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier, and simpler.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit.

We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers.

Man is the cruelest animal.

All psychology hitherto has remained stuck in moral prejudices and fears; it has not dared to descend into the depths.

The will to overcome an emotion is ultimately only the will of another emotion or of several other emotions.

The snake that cannot shed its skin must die. It must shed its mind along with its skin.

And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

Life is hard to bear: but do not pretend to be so delicate! We are all of us fine sumpter asses and assesses.

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

What does Europe owe to the Jews? Many things both good and bad, and one thing above all, at once the best and the worst: the grand moral style, the horror and the majesty of everlasting demands, everlasting meanings, the whole sublime romanticism of moral questions…

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power increases — that a resistance is overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at all, but war; not virtue, but efficiency (virtue in the Renaissance style, virtù, moraline-free virtue). The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our philanthropy. And one should help them to do it. What is more harmful than any vice? Active sympathy for the ill-constituted and weak — Christianity...

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.

Christianity is a revolt of all creatures that crawl on the ground against everything that is lofty.