“One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge.”

“The one necessary thing.— A person must have one or the other. Either a cheerful disposition by nature, or a disposition made cheerful by art and knowledge.”

“The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills. ‘Behold, just now the world became perfect!’—thus thinks every woman when she obeys out of entire love. And women must obey and find a depth for her surface. Surface is the disposition of woman: a mobile, stormy film over shallow water. Man’s disposition, however, is deep; his river roars in subterranean caves: woman feels his strength but does not comprehend it.”

“Only when he has attained a final knowledge of all things will man have come to know himself. For things are only the boundaries of man.”

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”

“One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.”

“When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial — as the real artists of life do.”