Men of great ambition have sought happiness . . . and have found fame.

Where there is happiness, there is found pleasure in nonsense. The transformation of experience into its opposite, of the suitable into the unsuitable, the obligatory into the optional (but in such a manner that this process produces no injury and is only imagined in jest), is a pleasure.

To the mediocre, mediocrity is a form of happiness.

The distinction that lies in being unhappy (as if to feel happy were a sign of shallowness, lack of ambition, ordinariness) is so great that when someone says, "But how happy you must be!" we usually protest.

To have to fight the instincts-that is the definition of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.

What is bad?-All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness?-The feeling that power is increasing-that resistance has been overcome.