Beyond Good and Evil

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

He who fights with mon­sters should be care­ful lest he thereby be­come a mon­ster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also.

Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

It seems that in or­der to in­scribe them­selves upon the heart of hu­man­ity with ever­last­ing claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enorm­ous and awe-in­spir­ing ca­ri­ca­tures:

any­one were to say to them, “A lofty spir­itu­al­ity is bey­ond all com­par­ison with the hon­esty and re­spect­ab­il­ity of a merely moral man”—it would make them furi­ous,

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus

But a curi­os­ity like mine is once for all the most agree­able of vices—par­don me! I mean to say that the love of truth has its re­ward in heaven, and already upon earth.

I have no doubt that every noble wo­man will op­pose what Dante and Go­ethe be­lieved about wo­man—the former when he sang, “ella guar­dava suso, ed io in lei,” and the lat­ter when he in­ter­preted it, “the etern­ally fem­in­ine draws us aloft”; for this is just what she be­lieves of the etern­ally mas­cu­line.