Preface: Genealogy
We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge—and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves—how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves?

On the Genealogy of Morals

These English psychologists, whom one has also to thank for the only attempts hitherto to arrive at a history of the origin of morality—they themselves are no easy riddle; I confess that, as living riddles, they even possess one essential advantage over their books—they are interesting!

Preface: Ecce Homo
Seeing that before long I must confront humanity with the most difficult demand ever made of it, it seems indispensable to me to say who I really am.

Ecce Homo

The Good fortune of my existence, its uniqueness perhaps, lies in its fatality: I am, to express it in the form of a riddle, already dead as my father, while as my mother I am still living and becoming old.