The world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else!

I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

In my opinion, there is no aspect of reality beyond the reach of the human mind.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

We are all ready to be savage in some cause. The difference between a good man and a bad one is the choice of the cause.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

The distinction between the past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

What is true belongs to me!

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

You are a child of the sun, you come from the sun, and that is something true with the Earth also… your relationship with the Earth is so deep, and the Earth is in you and this is something not very difficult, much less difficult then philosophy.

The cause of my life has been to oppose superstition. It’s a battle you can’t hope to win – it’s a battle that’s going to go on forever. It’s part of the human condition.

He who gives away shall have real gain. He who subdues himself shall be free; he shall cease to be a slave of passions. The righteous man casts off evil, and by rooting out lust, bitterness, and illusion do we reach Nirvana.

Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the Infinite.

Why do I not seek some real good; one which I could feel, not one which I could display?

Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

Who can exhaust a man? Who knows a man’s resources?

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy.

The Hindu religions gave me the impression of a vast well into which one plunges in order to grasp the reflection of the sun.

The man of science is a poor philosopher.

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

By indignities men come to dignities.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.

The final forming of a person’s character lies in their own hands.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.

Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.

History should be written as philosophy.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction.

To eat is to appropriate by destruction.

Existence precedes and rules essence.

My theory is 98 percent of all human endeavor is killing time.

Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Metaphysics means nothing but an unusually obstinate effort to think clearly.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Maybe other people will try to limit me but I don’t limit myself.

I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

If I think more about death than some other people, it is probably because I love life more than they do.

I’m an idealist without illusions.

‚They‘ is… stay away from them, please. There is so many different definitions of ‚they.‘ You might have a personal ‚they.‘ They against you; they want you broken and miserable. They don’t like winners; they don’t like people who’s blessed. So everybody’s got a different ‚they.‘

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

There is nothing besides a spiritual world; what we call the world of the senses is the Evil in the spiritual world, and what we call Evil is only the necessity of a moment in our eternal evolution.

How could man rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?

If I were not Alexander, I would be Diogenes.

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.

Every man casts a shadow; not his body only, but his imperfectly mingled spirit. This is his grief. Let him turn which way he will, it falls opposite to the sun; short at noon, long at eve. Did you never see it?

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.