And others are proud of their modicum of righteousness,
and for the sake of it do violence to all things:
so that the Earth is drowned in their unrighteousness.

Ah! how ineptly cometh the word "virtue" out of their mouth!
And when they say: "I am just,"
it always soundeth like: "I am just-revenged!"

With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies;
and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.

And again there are those who sit in their swamp,
and speak thus from among the bullrushes:
"Virtue - that is to sit quietly in the swamp.
We bite no one, and go out of the way of him who would bite;
and in all matters we have the opinion that is given us."

And again there are those who love attitudes,
and think that virtue is a sort of attitude.
Their knees continually adore,
and their hands are eulogies of virtue,
but their heart knoweth naught thereof.

And again there are those who regard it as virtue to say:

"Virtue is necessary";

but, after all is said and done, they believe only that policemen are necessary.

-from Thus Spake Zarathustra

The most instructive experiences are those of everyday life.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Belief means not wanting to know what is true.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think and act alike than those who think and act differently.

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

The Earth has a skin and that skin has diseases, one of those diseases is man.

Speaking generally, punishment hardens and numbs, it produces obstinacy, it sharpens the sense of alienation and strengthens the power of resistance.

Ideals of human equality perpetuate mediocrity.

Self-deception is a particularly destructive characteristic of Western culture.

People profess to be Christians and to have faith in God, but their confessions are habitual responses that lack depth and authenticity.

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philospher

From 1880 until his collapse in January 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche led a wandering existence as a stateless individual, writing most of his major works during this period. The initial symptoms of Friedrich Nietzsche's breakdown, as evidenced in the letters he sent to his friends in the few days of lucidity remaining to him, bear many similarities to the ecstatic writings of religious mystics. Friedrich Nietzsche's letters describe his experience as a religious breakthrough and he rejoices, rather than laments. A study of medical records has found that Friedrich Nietzsche almost certainly died of brain cancer.

Friedrich Nietzsche was heavily influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer who theorized that humans living in the realm of objects are living in the realm of desire, and thus are eternally tormented by that desire which is defined as the inherent drive within humans beings, and indeed all creatures, to stay alive and to reproduce.

Arthur Schopenhauer believed that through art the thinking individual could be jarred out of their limited, individual perspective to feel a sense of the universal (metaphysics) directly.