89. Mores and their victim. - The origin of mores may be found in two thoughts: "society is worth more than the individual," and "enduring advantage is to be preferred to ephemeral advantage" - from which it follows that the enduring advantage of society must be given precedence, unconditionally, over the advantage of the individual, especially over his momentary well-being but also over his enduring advantage and even his continued existence. Whether the individual suffers from an institution that is good for the whole, whether it causes him to atrophy or perish - mores must be preserved, sacrifices must be made. But such an attitude originates only in those who are not its victims - for they claim in their behalf that the individual may be worth more than many, also that present enjoyment, the moment in paradise, may have to be valued higher than a pallid continuation of painless or complacent states. The philosophy of the sacrificial animal, however, is always sounded too late; and so we retain mores and morality - which is no more than the feeling for the whole quintessence of mores under which one lives and has been brought up - brought up not as an individual but as a member of a whole, as a digit of a majority. Thus it happens constantly that an individual brings to bear upon himself, by means of his morality, the tyranny of the majority.
 
130. Readers' bad manners. - A reader is doubly guilty of bad manners against the author when he praises his second book at the expense of the first (or vise versa) and then asks the author to be grateful for that.
 
137. The worst readers. - The worst readers are those who proceed like plundering soldiers: They pick up a few things they can use, soil and confuse the rest, and blaspheme the whole.
 
145. Value of honest books. - Honest books make the reader honest, at least by luring into the open his hatred and aversion which his sly prudence otherwise knows how to conceal best. But against a book one lets oneself go, even if one is very reserved toward people.
 
157. Sharpest criticism. - One criticizes a person, a book, most sharply when one pictures their ideal.
 
168. Praise of aphorisms. - A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time and is not consumed by all millennia, although it serves every time for nourishment: thus it is the great paradox of literature, the intransitory amid the changing, the food that always remains esteemed, like salt, and never loses its savor, as even that does.
 
200. Original. - Not that one is the first to see something new, but that one sees as new what is old, long familiar, seen and overlooked by everybody, is what distinguishes truly original minds. The first discoverer is ordinarily that wholly common creature, devoid of spirit and addicted to fantasy - accident.
 
201. Philosopher's error. - The philosopher supposes that the value of his philosophy lies in the whole, in the structure; but posterity finds its value in the stone which he used for building, and which is used many more times after that for building - better. Thus it finds the value in the fact that the structure can be destroyed and nevertheless retains value as building material.
 
206. Why scholars are nobler than artists. - Science requires nobler natures than poetry does: they have to be simpler, less ambitious, more abstinent, quieter, not so concerned about posthumous fame, and forget themselves over matters that rarely seem worthy in the eyes of many of such a sacrifice of one's personality. To this must be added another loss of which they are conscious: the type of their work, the continual demand for the greatest sobriety, weakens their will; the fire is not kept as strong as on the hearth of poetic natures - and therefore they often lose their highest strength and bloom at an earlier age than those men do - and, as mentioned, they realize this danger. In any case they appear less gifted because they shine less, and they will be considered inferior to what they are.
 
251. In parting. - Not how one soul comes close to another but how it moves away shows me their kinship and how much they belong together.
 
298. Virtue has not been invented by the Germans. - Goethe's nobility and lack of envy, Beethoven's noble hermit's resignation, Mozart's charm and grace of the heart, Handel's unbendable manliness and freedom under the law, Bach's confident and transfigured inner life that does not even find it necessary to renounce splendor and success - are these in any way German qualities? - But if not, it at least shows for what Germans should strive and what they can attain.
 
309. Siding against oneself. - Our adherents never forgive us if we take sides against ourselves: for in their eyes this means not only rejecting their love but also exposing their intelligence.
 
325. Opinions. - Most people are nothing and are considered nothing until they have dressed themselves up in general convictions and public opinions - in accordance with the tailor philosophy: clothes make people. Of the exceptional person, however, it must be said: only he that wears it makes the costume; here opinions cease to be public and become something other than masks, finery, and disguises.
 
341. Loving the master. - Not as apprentices do, loves a master a master.
 
346. Being misunderstood. - When one is misunderstood as a whole, it is impossible to remove completely a single misunderstanding. One has to realize this lest one waste superfluous energy on one's defense.
 
404. How duty acquires splendor. - The means for changing your iron duty to gold in everyone's eyes is this: always keep a little more than you promise.
 
405. Prayer to men. - "Forgive us our virtues" - thus one should pray to men.
 
408. The journey to Hades. - I, too, have been in the underworld, like Odysseus, and shall be there often yet; and not only rams have I sacrificed to be able to speak with a few of the dead, but I have not spared my own blood. Four pairs it was that did not deny themselves to my sacrifice: Epicurus and Montaigne, Goethe and Spinoza, Plato and Rousseau, Pascal and Schopenhauer. With these I must come to terms when I have long wandered alone; they may call me right and wrong; to them will I listen when in the process they call each other right and wrong. Whatsoever I say, resolve, or think up for myself and others - on these eight I fix my eyes and see their eyes fixed on me.
May the living forgive me that occasionally they appear to me as shades, so pale and somber, so restless and, alas, so lusting for life - while those men then seem so alive to me as if now, after death, they could never again grow weary of life. But eternal alive-ness is what counts: what matters "eternal life" or any life!"