"A person who despises himself still respects himself as a despiser.
...
So cold, so icy, that you burn your fingers on him! Every hand that touches him darts back in fear! And for that very reason, some think he is aglow.
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When we are forced to re-evaluate a person, we judge him harshly for the trouble he causes us in doing so.
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There is an innocence in lying that signals good faith in a cause."
"Everything deep loves a mask; the very deepest things even have a hatred for image and parable ... A man whose shame is deep will encounter even his destinies and delicate choices upon roads that few people ever find and whose existence must be kept from his neighbours and closest friends: his mortal danger is hidden from their eyes, and also his regained mortal confidence. This secretive one, whose instincts bid him speak in order to silence and be silent, who is inexhaustible in evading communication, this person wants and demands that in his stead a mask inhabit the hearts and minds of his friends; and should it be that this is something the does not want, then one day his eyes will be opened to the fact that a mask of him is there nevertheless, and that that is good. Every deep spirit needs a mask: not only that, around every deep spirit a mask is continually growing, thanks to the constantly false, that is to say, shallow interpretations of his every word, his every step, every sign of life that he gives."
"The belly is the only reason that man doesn't readily take himself for a god."
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
