Change and Transformation

Every talent must unfold itself in fighting.

We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don't throw out the best part of ourselves.

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

O my brothers, I dedicate and direct you to a new nobility: you shall become procreators and cultivators and sowers of the future — verily, not to a nobility that you might buy like shopkeepers and with shopkeepers' gold: for whatever has its price has little value. Not whence you came shall henceforth constitute your honor, but whither you are going! Your will and your foot which has a will to go over and beyond yourselves — that shall constitute your new honor.

Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.

The brain's transmutation begins when consciousness understands that it made everything up – morality, good and bad, redemption and the truth. With this understanding, it realizes that now it can start anew.

It is the brain's full and absolute responsibility to evolve, nobody will do it for it, and grace and salvation do not exist. The brain must take its place as the source of grace and learn to operate itself properly. In fact, its transformation will begin when it will bear all responsibility alone.

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial — as the real artists of life do.

One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened—the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was unexpected…. The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again.

My world has just become perfect, midnight is also noonday, pain is also joy, a curse is also a blessing, the night is also a sun – be gone, or you will learn: a wise man is also a fool.

Our way is upward, from the species across to the super-species. But the degenerate mind which says ‘All for me’ is a horror to us.

What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe. It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.

Man is something that shall be overcome.Man is a rope,tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss.What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.

Love's cruel notion. - Every great love brings with it the cruel idea of killing the object of that love, so that he may be removed once and for all from the wicked game of change: for love dreads change more than it does destruction.

Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes the intention of finding a rhyme.

New struggles. -- After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries -- a colossal, horrible shadow. God is dead, but given the way people are, there may still be caves for millennia in which his shadow is displayed. -- And we -- we must still defeat his shadow as well!

Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.

To be incapable of taking one’s enemies, one’s accidents, even one’s misdeeds seriously for very long - that is the sign of strong full natures in whom there is an excess of power to form, to mold, to recuperate and to forget. Mirabeau had no memory for insults and vile actions done to him and was unable to forgive simply because he - forgot. Such a man shakes off with a single shrug the many vermin that eat deep into others.

You say, it's dark. And in truth, I did place a cloud before your sun. But do you not see how the edges of the cloud are already glowing and turning light.

He who has attained the freedom of reason to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth - and not even as a traveler towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. But he certainly wants to observe and keep his eyes open to whatever actually happens in the world; therefore he cannot attach his heart too firmly to anything individual; he must have in himself something wandering that takes pleasure in change and transitoriness.

The overman...Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment.