Who is the most moral man? First, he who obeys the law most frequently, who ... is continually inventive in creating opportunities for obeying the law. Then, he who obeys it even in the most difficult cases. The most moral man is he who sacrifices the most to custom.

The noble man does not sin, the profound poet wishes to tell us: through his actions every law, every natural order, the whole moral world can be destroyed, and through the actions a higher magic circle of effects is drawn, founding a new world on the ruin of the old, now destroyed.

Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.

Their usual mistaken premise is that they affirm some consensus among people, at least among tame peoples, concerning certain moral principles, and then conclude that these principles must be unconditionally binding also for you and me-or conversely, they see that among different peoples moral valuations are necessarily different and infer from this that no morality is binding-both of which are equally childish.

A moral system valid for all is basically immoral.

Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.