“I live in my own place. I never copied anybody, not even half. And at any master who lacks the grace to laugh at himself, I laugh.”

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things:—then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love from henceforth!”

“Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.”

“How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? ... that became for me more and more the real measure of value.”

“Life is that which must overcome itself again and again”

“Every true faith is infallible. It performs what the believing person hopes to find in it. But it does not offer the least support for the establishing of an objective truth. Here the ways of men divide. If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, have faith. If you want to be a disciple of truth, then search.”

“skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive”