“That which intoxicates, the sensually ecstatic, the sudden surprise, the urge to be profoundly stirred at any price -- dreadful tendencies!”

“For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.”

“Intoxicating joy it is for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and forget himself. Intoxicating joy and self-forgetting, the world once seemed to me.”

“The slow arrow of beauty. The most noble kind of beauty is that which does not carry us away suddenly, whose attacks are not violent or intoxicating (this kind easily awakens disgust), but rather the kind of beauty which infiltrates slowly, which we carry along with us almost unnoticed, and meet up with again in dreams; finally, after it has for a long time lain modestly in our heart, it takes complete possession of us, filling our eyes with tears, our hearts with longing. What do we long for when we see beauty? To be beautiful. We think much happiness must be connected with it. But that is an error.”

“The architect represents neither a Dionysian nor an Apollinian condition: here it is the mighty act of will, the will which moves mountains, the intoxication of the strong will, which demands artistic expression. The most powerful men have always inspired the architects; the architect has always been influenced by power.”

“The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.”

“whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable.”