Have you heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly, I seek God! I seek God! As many of those who do not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter...
Whither is God, he cried. I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. All of us are murderers.... God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.
The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude.
People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.
God is a too palpably clumsy answer; an answer which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers-fundamentally, even a crude prohibition to us: you shall not think!