Ecce Homo

I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.

I am no man, I am dynamite.

How much truth does a spirit endure, how much truth does it dare?

One has to know the size of one's stomach.

Water is sufficient...the spirit moves over water.

I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint.

Resentment, born of weakness, harms no one more than the weak person himself.

Another thing is war. I am naturally warlike. Attacking is one of my instincts. Being able to be an enemy, being an enemy — these require a strong nature, perhaps; in any case every strong nature presupposes them. It needs resistances, so it seeks resistance: aggressive pathos is just as integrally necessary to strength as the feeling of revenge and reaction is to weakness. Woman, forinstance, is vengeful: that is a condition of her weakness, as is her sensitivity to other people’s afflictions. — The strength of anattacker can in a way be gauged by the opposition he requires; allgrowth makes itself manifest by searching out a more powerful opponent — or problem: for a philosopher who is warlike challenges problems to duels, too. The task is not to master all resistances, but only those against which one has to pit one’s entire strength, suppleness, and mastery-at-arms — opponents who are equal...

Every acquisition, every step forward in knowledge is the result of courage, of severity toward oneself, of cleanliness with respect to oneself.

Ultimately no one can hear in things―books included―more than he already knows. If you have no access to something from experience, you will have no ear for it.

I would prefer to be a satyr rather than a saint.

Pain is not seen as an objection to life: 'If you have no happiness left to give me, well then! you still have your pain...

It is not doubt but certainty that drives you mad...

I attack only things that are triumphant — if necessary, I wait until they become triumphant.

To get up in the morning, in the fullness of youth, and open a book--now that’s what I call vicious!