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He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth and not even as a traveller towards a final goal, for there is no such thing.
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This crown to crown the laughing man, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown upon my head, I myself have pronounced my laughter holy.
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Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
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The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.
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He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.
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The will to truth is merely the longing for a stable world.
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The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness - he must come one day.
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Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.
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Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
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There are highly gifted spirits who are always infertile simply because, owing to a weakness in temperament, they are too impatient to wait out their pregnancy to term.
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A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.
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I hate you most because you attract, but are not strong enough to pull me to you.
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In the end things must be as they are and have always been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.
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He who possesses greatness is cruel towards his secondary virtues and considerations.
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Everyone nowadays lives through too much and thinks through too little: they have a ravenous appetite and colic at the same time so that they keep getting thinner and thinner no matter how much they eat.--Whoever says nowadays, "I have not experienced anything"--is a simpleton.
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Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes--and calls it his pride.
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Curiosity creeps into the houses of the unfortunate and the needy under the name of duty or of pity.
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Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
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The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything --and one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the ''productive'' man a yet higher species.
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I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. When I ascend I often jump over steps, and no step forgives me that.
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It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake - for in some cases it is a mistake.
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Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself -- in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity -- is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them.
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My humanity is a constant self-overcoming.
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The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.