There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane.
The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.
You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.
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.
We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities.
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.
There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life their Christianity, for instance.
Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.
We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
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?
There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.
Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.
Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.