Bad books. – A book ought to long for pen, ink and writing-desk: but as a rule pen, ink and writing desk long for a book. That is why books are nowadays of so little account.

Impossible company. – The ship of your thoughts moves too deep for you to be able to sail it on the waters of these decent, friendly, amicable people. There are too many shallows and sandbanks there: you would have to turn and twist and would be in constant embarrassment, and soon they too would be in embarrassment – over your embarrassment, whose cause they cannot divine.

Revenge for empty nets. – One should beware of anyone who is filled with the embitterment of the fisherman who after a hard day's work returns home in the evening with empty nets.

There are no educators. – As a thinker one should speak only of self-education[…] – One day, when one has long since been educated as the world understands it, one discovers oneself: here begins the task of the thinker; now the time has come to call on him for assistance – not as an educator but as one who has educated himself and who thus knows how it is done.

Against the shortsighted. – Do you think this work must be fragmentary because I give it to you (and have to give it to you) in fragments?

Quiet fruitfulness. – The born aristocrats of the spirit are not too zealous: their creations appear and fall from the tree on a quiet autumn evening unprecipitately, in due time, not quickly pushed aside by something new. The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything – and one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the 'productive man' a yet higher species.

The best author. – The best author will be he who is ashamed to become a writer.

Thinkers as stylists. – Most thinkers write badly because they communicate to us not only their thoughts but also the thinking of their thoughts.

Nietzsche, from Human All Too Human