Ethics and Morality

In order that there may be institutions, there must be a kind of will, instinct, or imperative, which is anti-liberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuries to come, to the solidarity of chains of generations, forward and backward ad infinitum.

Anarchists are mouthpieces of a declining stratum of society; when they work themselves into a state of righteous indignation demanding 'rights', 'justice', 'equal rights', they are just acting under the pressure of their own lack of culture, which has no way of grasping why they really suffer, or what they lack in life.

Every kind of contempt for sex, every impurification of it by means of the concept "impure", is the crime par excellence against life--is the real sin against the holy spirit of life

Visiting the sick' is an orgasm of superiority in the contemplation of our neighbor's helplessness

Even on this level, it is at bottom not deception [men] hate but the dire, inimical consequences of certain kinds of deception

And as long as you are in any way ashamed before yourself, you do not yet belong with us.

Should not the giver be thankful that the receiver received? Is not giving a need? Is not receiving mercy?

And he who would not languish among men, must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who would keep clean among men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.

One is punished most for one’s virtues.

When virtue has slept it will arise more vigorous.

When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher.

A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

The man who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself.

Pure logic is the impossibility by means of which science is maintained.

I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. the will to a system is a lack of integrity.

One must not let oneself be misled: they say 'Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

Dante, I think, committed a crude blunder when, with a terror-inspiring ingenuity, he placed above the gateway of his hell the inscription, 'I too was created by eternal love'--at any rate, there would be more justification for placing above the gateway to the Christian Paradise...the inscription 'I too was created by eternal hate'...

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Equality before the enemy -that is the main condition to fight a fair duel. Where you have contempt, you cannot wage war; where you are in command, where you can see someone beneath you, you should not wage war.

Every past is worth condemning.

The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level (by belittling them, excluding them, tripping them up) or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else (by acknowledging them, helping them, and rejoicing in their success).

A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes renders obedience.