The most welcome joke to me is the one that takes the place of a heavy, not altogether innocuous thought, at once a cautionary hint of the finger and a flash of the eye.
My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.
Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby has he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph has he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.
Reckoned physiologically, everything ugly weakens and afflicts man. It recalls decay, danger, impotence; he actually suffers a loss of energy in its presence. The effect of the ugly can be measured with a dynamometer. Whenever man feels in any way depressed, he senses the proximity of something ugly. His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage, his pride - they decline with the ugly, they increase with the beautiful.
For what purpose humanity is there should not even concern us: why you are here, that you should ask yourself: and if you have no ready answer, then set for yourself goals, high and noble goals, and perish in pursuit of them!
The perfect woman perpetrates literature as she perpetrates a small sin: as an experiment, in passing, glancing around to see whether anybody notices--and to make sure that somebody notices.
Metaphysical world.- It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.