Quotes About Contrast

The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.

Man does not strive for happiness; only the Englishman does that.

Wohl bin ich ein Wald und eine Nacht dunkler Bäume: doch wer sich vor meinem Dunkel nicht scheut, der findet auch Rosenhänge unter meinen Zypressen.

We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we percieve that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.

To be sure, I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but (s)he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.

I would prefer to be a satyr rather than a saint.

Light for some time to come will have to be called darkness.

Morality negates life.

Moderation sees itself as beautiful; it is unaware that in the eye of the immoderate it appears black and sober and consequently ugly-looking

Terribleness is part of greatness: let us not deceive ourselves.

Sharp and mild, dull and keen, well known and strange, dirty and clean, where both the fool and wise are seen: All this am I, have ever been, - in me dove, snake and swine convene!

I do not know how to make a distinction between tears and music

We find other people's vanity contrary to our taste only when it is contrary to our vanity.

Extreme positions are not relieved by more moderate ones, but by extreme opposite positions.

The night is also a sun.

Even the worst thing has two good verso-sides.

Have you understood me? Dionysus versus Christ.

And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always surprise and lightning and night, along with the light.

Naked have I seen both of them, the greatest man and the smallest man. All too similar are they still to each other. Verily, even the greatest found I all too human.

there is a depth of happiness in which the painfullest and gloomiest do not operate as antitheses, but as conditioned, as demanded in the sense of necessary shades of colour in such an overflow of light.

Way to equality.—A few hours of mountain climbing turn a villain and a saint into two rather equal creatures. Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity—and liberty is added eventually by sleep. 297

When we look out for the Barbarian, we look in the depths. But there is another type of Barbarian, who comes from the heights.

Ich liebe die großen Verachtenden, weil sie die großen Verehrenden sind und Pfeile der Sehnsucht nach dem andern Ufer.

Mejor la libertad y una senda helada que un hogar cálido y la servidumbre.