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To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.
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I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!
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Der Mensch strebt nicht nach Glück; nur der Engländer thut das
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No journey is too great, when one finds what one seeks.
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All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.
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...throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.
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O, what nowadays does science not conceal! How much, at least, it is meant to conceal!
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The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.
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Art raises its head where creeds relax.
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One is punished best for one's virtues.
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What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.
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wir vermeinen, daß Härte, Gewaltsamkeit, Sklaverie, Gefahr auf der Gasse und im Herzen, Verborgenheit, Stoicismus, Versucherkunst und Teufelei jeder Art, daß alles Böse, Furchtbare, Tyrannische, Raubthier- und Schlangenhafte am Menschen so gut zur Erhöhung der Species »Mensch« dient, als sein Gegensatz...
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Everything matters. Nothing's important.
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When a man is in love he endures more than at other times; he submits to everything.
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Sensuality often makes love grow too quickly, so that the root remains weak and is easy to pull out.
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The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist.
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At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
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The future influences the present just as much as the past.
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All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race - before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its god to be truthful and understandable in his communications.
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Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.
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Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
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The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.
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The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.
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People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.