Weariness, which seeketh to get to the ultimate with one leap, with a death-leap; a poor ignorant weariness, unwilling even to will any longer: that created all Gods and backworlds.

Whatever they may think and say about their "egoism", the great majority nonetheless do nothing for their ego their whole life long: what they do is done for the phantom of their ego which has formed itself in the heads of those around them and has been communicated to them.

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?

It may be that until now there has been no more potent means for beautifying man himself than piety: it can turn man into so much art, surface, play of colors, graciousness that his sight no longer makes one suffer.---

L’homme cherche un principe au nom duquel il puisse mépriser l’homme ; il invente un autre monde pour pouvoir calomnier et salir ce monde-ci ; en fait, il ne saisit jamais que le néant et fait de ce néant un « Dieu », une « vérité » appelés à juger et à condamner cette existence-ci.

There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.