“There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.”

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Man is the cruelest animal.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.

My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die.

Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman – a rope over an abyss.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called Ego.

Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler.

If everyone really knew what a jerk I am in real life, I wouldn’t be so adored in the slightest.

The last person I adored made me cry and then tenderly wiped the tears off my face. It was the only lesson that taught me; you can love someone and still do horrible, cruel things to them.

In my case, dust has become gold: Today, I work with people I grew up admiring.

I have a lot of admiration for people who’ve been in relationships a long time, married for years.

The world is conditioned to admire flowers. Keep watering your roots.

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and approximate to the characters we most admire.

If you admire greatness in another human being, it is your own greatness you are seeing.

So what if you end up buying a size 6 instead of a 4? You can always cut out the label at home, and you’ll pretty soon forget whatever that number was because you’ll be too busy admiring how fantastic you look.