Ethics and Morality

A moral system valid for all is basically immoral.

The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.

But one thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and another thing is the idea of the deed. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them.

A well-constituted human being, a ‘happy one’, must perform certain actions and instinctively shrinks from other actions, he transports the order of which he is the physiological representative into his relations with other human beings and with things. In a formula: his virtue is the consequence of his happiness…Everything good is instinct—and consequently easy, necessary, free. Effort is an objection.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.

The bite of conscience is indecent.

When man no longer regards himself as evil he ceases to be so!

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.)

There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil.

Man is the cruelest animal.

To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.

Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning of the earth! . . . Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings. . . . Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth—yes, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!

The sedentary life...is the real sin against the holy spirit.

Alas, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate?And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?Woe to all lovers who cannot surmount pity!Thus spoke the Devil to me once: Even God has his Hell: it is his love for man.And I lately heard him say these words: God is dead; God has died of his pity for man.

He who cannot put his thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of dispute.

Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief on already has.

What do you consider the most humane? - To spare someone shame. What is the seal of liberation? - To no longer be ashamed in front of oneself.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.

The deepest and most sublime hatred is a hatred which creates ideals and transforms values—something whose like has never been seen on earth

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one has given. One must have strong powers of imagination to be able to have pity. So closely is morality bound to the quality of the intellect.

How can a man become great if he does not feel in himself the force and the will to inflict great pain