All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of 'eternity'; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book - what everyone else does not say in a book.
In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.
The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.
Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.
We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.
To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.
