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Knowing one’s “Individuality”. — We too often forget how in the eyes of strangers who see us for the first time we are quite different beings from what we consider ourselves to be — in most cases we exhibit nothing more than one particular characteristic which catches the eye of the stranger,  and determines the impression we make on him. Thus the most peaceful and fair-minded man, if only he has a big moustache, may, as it were, repose in the shade of this moustache; for ordinary eyes will merely see in him the accessory of a big moustache, that is to say, a military, irascible, and occasionally violent character, and will act accordingly.

- Beyond Good

and Evil

§ 381

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L’Ordre du Jour pour le Roi. The day begins: let us set about arranging this day the affairs and festivities of our most gracious lord, who at present is yet pleased to repose. His Majesty has bad weather today; we shall be careful not to call it bad; we shall not speak of the weather but shall go through today’s business somewhat more ceremoniously and make the festivities a bit more festive than would otherwise be necessary. His Majesty may even be ill: we shall deliver the late good news of the evening at breakfast, the arrival of M. Montaigne, who knows how to joke so pleasantly about his sickness; he suffers from a stone. We shall receive several persons ... and the reception will last longer than is pleasant to anybody ... Hark! Wasn't that the bell? Damnit. The day and the dance begin and we don't know the programme! So we have to improvise - the whole world improvises its day.

- The Gay Science

I, §22

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Disturbances of the Thinker. — All that interrupts the thinker in his thoughts (disturbs him, as people say) must be regarded by him calmly, as a new model who comes in by the door to offer himself to the artist. Interruptions are the ravens which bring food to the recluse.

- Human, All Too Human

 2, 2, §342

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Doors. — In everything that is learnt or experienced, the child, like the man, sees doors.

- HH, 2, 1, §281

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At bottom, man mirrors himself in things; he considers everything beautiful that reflects his own image: the judgment “beautiful” is the vanity of his species. For a little suspicion may whisper this question into the skeptic’s ear: Is the world really beautified by the fact that man thinks it beautiful? He has humanized it, that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing, guarantees that man should be the model of beauty. Who knows what he looks like in the eyes of a higher judge of beauty? Daring perhaps? Perhaps even amusing? Perhaps a little arbitrary? 

   “O Dionysus, divine one, why do you pull me by my ears?” Ariadne once asked her philosophic lover during one of those famous dialogues on Naxos. “I find a kind of humor in your ears, Ariadne: why are they not even longer?”

- Twilight of the Idols,

"Skirmishes" §18

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The Consciousness of Appearances … For me, appearance is that which is active and living itself, which goes so far in its self-mockery as to make me feel here that there is appearance and will-o'-the-wisp and spirit dance and nothing more - that among all these dreamers also I, the “knower”, dance my dance; that the knower is a means to prolong the earthly dance and in this respect belongs to party planners of existence, and that the sublime consistency and connectedness of all knowledge is and may persist as the highest means of maintaining the universal dream, the mutual comprehensibility of all these dreams to all these dreamers, and thus the dream's continuation.

- GS, I, §54.

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— The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is the self-enjoying soul.

- Thus Spake Zarathustra,

Part III, 54

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Not in shattering idols,

But in shattering the idol-worshipper in thee,

Consisted thy valour.

- Fragments of Dionysus-Dithyrambs, "Speeches,

Parables

& Images"

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I mean that power to sprout strangely out of oneself, to refashion and incorporate the past and the alien, to heal wounds, to replace the lost, to recreate broken moulds out of oneself.

- "The Uses and Abuses of History for Life"

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I would study more and more to see what is necessary in things as that which is beautiful: I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war on the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking away, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, and on the whole: I wish to be someday nothing but a Yea-sayer!

- GS, IV, §276

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The bird that once appeared on earth 

As phoenix is your guest. 

 

The mouse that gave a mountain birth 

Is you yourself confessed!

-"To Hafiz,

Toast Question of a

Water Drinker"

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“Now, my friend,” interrupted the philosopher, laughingly, “you speak as one who would fain dive into the water without being able to swim, and who fears something even more than the mere drowning; not being drowned, but laughed at. But being laughed at should be the very last thing for us to dread.

- “On the Future of Our Educational Institutions”