Where there have been powerful governments, societies, religions, public opinions, in short wherever there has been tyranny, there the solitary philosopher has been hated; for philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force it way #EleNao

God, I know you’re dead, but #PrayForBrazil. #EleNao

Forgetting our intentions is the most frequent of all acts of stupidity.

The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about a matter is usually not our own, but only the customary one, appropriate to our caste, position, or parentage; our own opinions seldom swim near the surface.

It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learn how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly! #EleNao

First principle: one must need to be strong — otherwise one will never become strong. #EleNao

Morality is herd instinct in the individual

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning oneself.

“What if a demon were to creep after you one night, in your loneliest loneliness, and say, 'This life which you live must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence....’

#BOL卐ONARO - let him have all the characteristics of the masses: the less they are ashamed before him, the more popular he is. So, let him be violent, envious, exploitative, scheming, fawning, groveling, puffed up, or, according to the circumstances, all of the above.

We are franker towards others than towards ourselves.

Your true educators and formative teachers reveal to you what the real raw material of your being is, something quite ineducable, yet in any case accessible only with difficulty, bound, paralyzed: your educators can be only your liberators.

I am impassioned for independence; I sacrifice all for it… And am tortured more by the smallest strings than others are by chains

A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow

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

Possessing opinions is like possessing fish, assuming one has a fish pond. One has to go fishing and needs some luck- then one has one's own (live) fish, one's own (live) opinions. Others are satisfied if they own a cabinet of fossils- and in their heads, "convictions”

The snake that cannot cast its skin perishes. So too with those minds which are prevented from changing their views: they cease to be minds.

Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.

The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has produced all the elevations of humanity so far?

Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven.