Quote collection
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"A woman does not want the truth; what is truth to women? From the beginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile to woman than the truth - her great art is the lie, her highest concern is mere appearance and beauty."
"The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for "laws."
"O, what nowadays does science not conceal! How much, at least, it is meant to conceal!"
"There is something laughable about the sight of authors who enjoy the rustling folds of long and involved sentences: they are trying to cover up their feet."
"It is difficult to preach, this morality of mediocrity! It may never admit what it is and what it wants! It must speak about restraint and worth and duty and love of one's neighbor."
"In order to be able thus to misjudge, and thus to grant left-handed veneration to our classics, people must have ceased to know them. This, generally speaking, is precisely what has happened. For, otherwise, one ought to know that there is only one way of honoring them, and that is to continue seeking with the same spirit and with the same courage, and not to weary of the search."
"A few hours' mountain climbing make of a rogue and a saint two fairly equal creatures. Tiredness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity - and sleep finally adds to them liberty."
"When anyone apologizes to us he has to do it very expertly: otherwise we might easily come to see ourselves as the guilty party and experience unpleasant feelings."
"Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly handshaking"
"The priest knows, as every one knows, that there is no longer any "God," or any "sinner," or any "Saviour" that "free will" and the "moral order of the world" are lies : serious reflection, the profound self conquest of the spirit, allow no man to pretend that he does not know it."
"Wherever primitive man put up a word, he believed he had made a discovery. How utterly mistaken he really was! He had touched a problem, and while supposing he had solved it, he had created and obstacle to its solution. Now, with every new knowledge we stumble over flint-like and petrified words and, in so doing, break a leg sooner than a word."
"All human life is sunk deep in untruth; the individual cannot pull it out of this well without growing profoundly annoyed with his entire past, without finding his present motives (like honor) senseless, and without opposing scorn and disdain to the passions that urge one on to the future and to the happiness in it."
"At heart I am a warrior."
"These four, however, seek the freedom of their will at the very point where they are most securely chained. It is as if the silkworm sought freedom of will in spinning. What is the reason?"
"It is so little true that martyrs offer any support to the truth of a cause that I am inclined to deny that any martyr has ever had anything to do with the truth at all."
"Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life."
"The condition that gives birth to a rule is not the same as the condition to which the rule gives birth."
"The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us."
"Every word has its fragrance: there is a harmony and a disharmony of fragrances, and hence of words."
"Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming."