Aphoristic Writings, Notebook, and Letters to a Friend, by Otto ...

The criminal invents the snake and is afraid of it; but he never dies by it. Nothing
ever happens to him from outside, only inside: heart attack from the hallucinated
snake.
So the criminal also constructs woman as idea (he wants intercourse), but she does
not exist to him. He never finds the woman that he seeks because he creates only the
idea of a woman. He can sexually lust after the absolute prostitute (an old woman)
and he can love the Madonna (if he wants to become pure), but he finds a Madonna
only when he is good; in this moment he creates the Madonna.
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The athlete has strength as an end in itself, without an ethical goal. The athlete
must perish of himself, as the Valhalla-motif expires of itself.
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The snake is proud: it lies only outwardly, not inwardly.
The dog is not proud at all.
The snake strikes surely; the strength of knowledge is greatest in it.
The old maid is the nothing which comes out of woman, who, for ethical reasons,
is no longer met with by the man who creates her. She goes completely to ruin.
The moon is the dream; the sleepwalker is the dreamer become unfree.
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Epilepsy enters after the swallowing of all evil, upon the last renouncement of
introspection.
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Every victory of the Good in one person helps others of itself.
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