Friedrich Nietzsche

"And how does one basically recognize good development? In that a well-developed man does our senses good: that he is carved from wood which is hard, delicate, and sweet-smelling, all at the same time."

"For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."

"I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength."

"Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper."

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

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

"Our faith in others betrays that we would rather have faith in ourselves. Our longing for a friend is our betrayer. And often with our love we want merely to overcome envy. And often we attack and make ourselves enemies, to conceal that we are vulnerable."

"To do great things is difficult but to command great things is more difficult."

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

"All modern philosophizing is political, policed by governments, churches, academics, custom, fashion, and human cowardice, all off which limit it to a fake learnedness."

"Shared joys make a friend not shared sufferings."

"The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune."