“Become who you are.”

“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”

“Consider the herds that are feeding yonder: they do not know what is yesterday or today; they run about, eat, rest, digest, and run about again; and so from morning to night, and from day to day, closely bound by their short-lived pleasures and pains, and fastened to the stake of the moment, and therefore neither melancholy nor bored. This is a hard sight for man to see; for he prides himself on his humanity before the beasts, and yet looks with jealousy on their happiness. He wishes simply to live without satiety or pain, like the beast; yet it is in vain, for he will not wish it as the beast does. Man may ask the beast: "Why dost thou not speak to me of thy happiness, but only look at me?" The beast wants to answer too, and say: "Because I always forget what I wished to say"; but then he forgets this answer too, and keeps silent; and man wonders thereat. But he also wonders at himself, that he cannot learn to forget, but always clings to the past: however far or fast he run, that heavy chain runs with him. It is a marvel, the moment is there and gone, in a wink gone, before that nothing, afterwards nothing; and yet it returns again as a ghost, and disturbs the peace of a later moment.”

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”