Friedrich Nietzsche
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich NietzscheA friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.
Friedrich NietzscheA good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
Friedrich NietzscheA great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
Friedrich NietzscheA pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
Friedrich NietzscheA subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
Friedrich NietzscheA woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
Friedrich NietzscheAdmiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.
Friedrich NietzscheAfter coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
Friedrich NietzscheAh, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
Friedrich NietzscheAll credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Friedrich NietzscheAll sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Friedrich NietzscheAll things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Friedrich NietzscheAll truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Friedrich NietzscheAll truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?
Friedrich NietzscheAlthough the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Friedrich NietzscheAn artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Friedrich NietzscheAnd if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich NietzscheAnd we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
Friedrich NietzscheAnyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.
Friedrich NietzscheArrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
Friedrich NietzscheArt is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
Friedrich NietzscheArt is the proper task of life.
Friedrich NietzscheArt raises its head where creeds relax.
Friedrich NietzscheAt times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
Friedrich NietzscheBefore the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.
Friedrich NietzscheBehind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
Friedrich NietzscheBlessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
Friedrich NietzscheCharacter is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
Friedrich NietzscheConvictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
Friedrich NietzscheDo whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.
Friedrich NietzscheDoes wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
Friedrich NietzscheEgoism is the very essence of a noble soul.
Friedrich NietzscheEvery church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
Friedrich NietzscheEvery man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.
Friedrich Nietzsche‘Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?
Friedrich NietzscheExistence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
Friedrich NietzscheExperience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.
Friedrich NietzscheExtreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.
Friedrich NietzscheFaith: not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich NietzscheFanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.
Friedrich NietzscheFear is the mother of morality.
Friedrich NietzscheFor art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
Friedrich NietzscheFor the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
Friedrich NietzscheGenteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.
Friedrich NietzscheGlance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.
Friedrich NietzscheGo up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.
Friedrich NietzscheGod is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.
Friedrich NietzscheGreat indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
Friedrich NietzscheHe that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
Friedrich NietzscheHe who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
Friedrich NietzscheHe who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Friedrich NietzscheHe who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich NietzscheHe who laughs best today, will also laughs last.
Friedrich NietzscheHe who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
Friedrich NietzscheHope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich NietzscheI assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
Friedrich NietzscheI cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Friedrich NietzscheI do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his “divine service.”
Friedrich NietzscheI love those who do not know how to live for today.
Friedrich NietzscheI still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.
Friedrich NietzscheI would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.
Friedrich NietzscheIdleness is the parent of psychology.
Friedrich NietzscheIf a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
Friedrich NietzscheIf there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
Friedrich NietzscheIf you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich NietzscheIn Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Friedrich NietzscheIn every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
Friedrich NietzscheIn everything one thing is impossible: rationality.
Friedrich NietzscheIn heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich NietzscheIn individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich NietzscheIn large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
Friedrich NietzscheIn music the passions enjoy themselves.
Friedrich NietzscheIn praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.
Friedrich NietzscheIn the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
Friedrich NietzscheIn the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.
Friedrich NietzscheIn the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.
Friedrich NietzscheInsanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich NietzscheIs life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Friedrich NietzscheIs man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?
Friedrich NietzscheIt is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
Friedrich NietzscheIt is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.
Friedrich NietzscheIt says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.
Friedrich NietzscheJudgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.
Friedrich NietzscheLet us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
Friedrich NietzscheLove is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
Friedrich NietzscheLove is not consolation. It is light.
Friedrich NietzscheLove matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
Friedrich NietzscheMadness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
Friedrich NietzscheMany a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.
Friedrich NietzscheMany are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
Friedrich NietzscheMorality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
Friedrich NietzscheMystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
Friedrich NietzscheNecessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.
Friedrich NietzscheNo one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
Friedrich NietzscheNot necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
Friedrich NietzscheNot when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
Friedrich NietzscheNothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
Friedrich NietzscheNothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man – the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
Friedrich NietzscheOf all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.
Friedrich NietzscheOn the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
Friedrich NietzscheOnce spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
Friedrich NietzscheOne has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
Friedrich NietzscheOne may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.
Friedrich NietzscheOne must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich NietzscheOne often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
Friedrich NietzscheOne ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
Friedrich NietzscheOne should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
Friedrich NietzscheOur treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.
Friedrich NietzscheOur vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.
Friedrich NietzschePeople who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
Friedrich NietzschePerhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Friedrich NietzschePlato was a bore.
Friedrich NietzscheRegarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.
Friedrich NietzscheRejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.
Friedrich NietzscheShared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.
Friedrich NietzscheSleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.
Friedrich NietzscheSome are made modest by great praise, others insolent.
Friedrich NietzscheStupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.
Friedrich NietzscheSuccess has always been a great liar.
Friedrich NietzscheTalking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich NietzscheThat which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheThe “kingdom of Heaven” is a condition of the heart – not something that comes “upon the earth” or “after death.”
Friedrich NietzscheThe abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.
Friedrich NietzscheThe aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of “eternity”; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book.
Friedrich NietzscheThe bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.
Friedrich NietzscheThe best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.
Friedrich NietzscheThe best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
Friedrich NietzscheThe Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Friedrich NietzscheThe demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.
Friedrich NietzscheThe desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.
Friedrich NietzscheThe doer alone learneth.
Friedrich NietzscheThe essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
Friedrich NietzscheThe future influences the present just as much as the past.
Friedrich NietzscheThe individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich NietzscheThe irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
Friedrich NietzscheThe lie is a condition of life.
Friedrich NietzscheThe man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Friedrich NietzscheThe most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
Friedrich NietzscheThe press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.
Friedrich NietzscheThe surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich NietzscheThe true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
Friedrich NietzscheThe word “Christianity” is already a misunderstanding – in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
Friedrich NietzscheThe world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else!
Friedrich NietzscheThere are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
Friedrich NietzscheThere are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
Friedrich NietzscheThere cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
Friedrich NietzscheThere is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.
Friedrich NietzscheThese people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.
Friedrich NietzscheThis is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.
Friedrich NietzscheThis is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.
Friedrich NietzscheThose who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
Friedrich NietzscheThoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.
Friedrich NietzscheTo be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.
Friedrich NietzscheTo forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
Friedrich NietzscheTo use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.
Friedrich NietzscheToday I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?
Friedrich NietzscheTwo great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.
Friedrich NietzscheUndeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
Friedrich NietzscheWar has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
Friedrich NietzscheWe do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.
Friedrich NietzscheWe have art in order not to die of the truth.
Friedrich NietzscheWe hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
Friedrich NietzscheWe love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
Friedrich NietzscheWe often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
Friedrich NietzscheWe should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?
Friedrich NietzscheWhat do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
Friedrich NietzscheWhat? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!
Friedrich NietzscheWhatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way – before one began.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen one has not had a good father, one must create one.
Friedrich NietzscheWhen you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
Friedrich NietzscheWhenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego'.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever does not have a good father should procure one.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.
Friedrich NietzscheWhoever has witnessed another's ideal becomes his inexorable judge and as it were his evil conscience.
Friedrich NietzscheWit is the epitaph of an emotion.
Friedrich NietzscheWithout music, life would be a mistake.
Friedrich NietzscheWoman was God's second mistake.
Friedrich NietzscheWomen are considered deep – why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.
Friedrich NietzscheWomen are quite capable of entering into a friendship with a man, but to keep it going that takes a little physical antipathy as well.
Friedrich NietzscheWomen can form a friendship with a man very well; but to preserve it – to that end a slight physical antipathy must probably help.
Friedrich NietzscheWords are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.
Friedrich NietzscheYou have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
Friedrich NietzscheYou must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich NietzscheYou say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
Friedrich Nietzsche