I do not know what meaning classical studies could have for our time if they were not untimely that is to say, acting counter to our time and thereby acting on our time and, let us hope, for the benefit of a time to come.
Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.
Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability.
Those moralists, on the other hand, who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions.
There still shines the most important nuance by virtue of which the noble felt themselves to be men of a higher rank. They designate themselves simply by their superiority in power (as "the powerful," "the masters," "the commanders") or by the most clearly visible signs of this superiority, for example, as "the rich," "the possessors" (this is the meaning of 'Arya,' and of corresponding words in Iranian and Slavic).
And if a friend does you wrong, then say: "I forgive you what you have done to me; that you have done it to YOURSELF, however--how could I forgive that!
Men seldom persevere in a vocation unless they believe or can convince themselves that it is fundamentally more important than anyother calling. Women are the same with their lovers.
Asceticism is the right way of thinking for those who have to extirpate their sensual drives because they are ravening beasts of prey. But only for those!
[Heraclitus] did not require humans or their sort of knowledge, since everything into which one may inquire he despises [as being] in contrast [to his own] inward-turning wisdom. [To him] all learning from others is a sign of nonwisdom, because the wise man focuses his vision on his own intelligence.