Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche

Become who you are.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Mankind must work continually to produce individual great human beings - this and nothing else is the task... for the question is this : How can your life, the individual life, retain the highest value, the deepest significance? Only by living for the good of the rarest and most valuable specimens.

And to me also, who appreciate life, the butterflies, and soap-bubbles, and whatever is like them amongst us, seem most to enjoy happiness.

Love forgives the lover even his lust.

Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise: so say the most ancient and most modern serpents.

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realised joy could be.

My solitude doesn't depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.

We ought to face our destiny with courage.

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

The magnitude of a progress is gauged by the greatness of the sacrifice that it requires.

No conqueror believes in chance.

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.

The doer alone learneth.

The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory is too good.

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.

He 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.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

Battle not with monsters, lest you become one and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

Higher still than love of humankind is the love of causes and ghosts.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

We do not belong to those who have ideas only among books, when stimulated by books. It is our habit to think outdoors -- walking, leaping, climbing, dancing, preferably on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful.

As soon as you feel yourself against me you have ceased to understand my position and consequently my arguments! You have to be the victim of the same passion!

We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don't throw out the best part of ourselves.

The voice of beauty speaks softly; it creeps only into the most fully awakened souls.

A person's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.

Jealousy which keeps silent grows in its silence.

A man who is very busy seldom changes his opinions.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged accurately by the decline of ill temper.

Without music life would be a mistake.

To be independent is the business of a few only; it is the privilege of the strong.

There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.

A thought comes when it will, not when I will.

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.

Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.

For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing.

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.

Smooth ice is paradise for those who dance with expertise.

At times, our strengths propel us so far forward we can no longer endure our weaknesses and perish from them.

This woman is beautiful and clever: but how much cleverer she would have become if she were not beautiful!

Battle not with monsters lest you become one.

The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others.

Concerning great things one should either be silent or speak loftily.

In our interactions with people, a benevolent hypocrisy is frequently required -- acting as though we do not see through the motives of their actions.

Merchant and pirate were for a long period one and the same person. Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.

No more fiction, for now we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.

Immature is the love of the youth, and immature his hatred of man and earth. His mind and the wings of his spirit are still tied down and heavy.

In the world of high finance the shilling of the idle rich man can buy more than that of the poor, industrious man.

The greatest cure for love is still that time honoured medicine -- love returned.

Fathers have a lot to do to make up for having sons.

What the father kept silent the son speaks out.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb anddance; one cannot fly into flying.

In our own presence, we all pretend to be simpler than we are: thus we take a break from our fellow human beings.

It is not lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Everything good is the transmutation of something evil, every god has a devil for a father.

Not to he who is offensive to us are we most unfair but to he who does not concern us at all.

Whether in conversation we generally agree or disagree with others is largely a matter of habit: the one tendency makes as much sense as the other.

For believe me: The secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is to live dangerously.

There is always one too many around me, thus thinks the hermit. Always one times one eventually that makes two. I and me are always too deep in conversation.

The charm of knowledge would be small indeed, were it not that there is so much shame to be overcome on the way to it.

In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that you must have long legs.

The final reward of the dead -- to die no more.

Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness.

Notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.

Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.

I deny morality as I deny alchemy.

Man's task is simple. He should cease letting his existence be a thoughtless accident.

We would not let ourselves be burned to death for our opinions: we are not sure enough of them for that.

The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals.

Is the world really beautified by the fact that man thinks it beautiful? He has humanized it, that is all.

Acknowledge your will and speak to us all, This alone is what I will to be! Hang your own penal code up above you: we want to be its enforcers!

Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom.

And if you are not a bird, then beware of coming to rest above an abyss.

There is always a certain noise in applause: even in the applause we give ourselves.

The apprentice and the master love the master in different ways.

Association with other people corrupts our character; especially when we have none.

Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain.

Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.

One does not attack a person merely to hurt and conquer him, but perhaps merely to become conscious of one's own strength.

One can only be silent and sit peacefully when one hath arrow and bow; otherwise one prateth and quarrelleth. Let your peace be a victory!

Vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

When a man reaches his maturity in understanding and in years, the feeling comes over him that his father was wrong to beget him.

People have always wanted to 'improve' human beings; for the most part, this has been called morality.

We praise or blame as one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgement.

Every society has a tendency to reduce it's opponents to caricatures.

The masters have been done away with; the morality of the common man has triumphed.

Perhaps man will rise ever higher as soon as he ceases to flow out into a god.

Pity is the most agreeable feeling among those who have little pride and no prospects of great conquests.

Not necessity, not desire
- no, the love of power is
the demon of men.

What is the difference between someone who is convinced and one who is deceived? None, if he is well deceived.

I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.

Perhaps no philosopher is more correct than the cynic. The happiness of the animal, that thorough cynic, is the living proof of cynicism.

Pity makes suffering contagious.

It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height.

To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them.

The doer is merely a fiction added to the deed ? the deed is everything.

Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.

All concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition; only that which has no history is definable.

I and me are always too deeply in conversation.

A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach.

Women are still cats and birds. Or at the best, cows.

Discontent is the seed of ethics.

The devotion of the greatest is to encounter risk and danger, and play dice for death.

Triumph depends on a roll of Fate's dice; the ultimate prize is a place in Heaven.

In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge, but egoism of a different quality.

I am not a human being, I am dynamite.

I am no man, I am dynamite.

It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake -- for in some cases it is a mistake.

One has been a poor spectator of life if one has not witnessed the hand -- that kills from mercy.

One never perishes through anybody but oneself.

In a certain state it is indecent to live longer.

We evaluate the services that anyone renders to us according to the value he puts on them, not according to the value they have for us.

For fanaticism is the only form of willpower that even the weak and insecure can be brought to attain.

What I understand by philosopher: a terrible explosive in the presence of which everything is in danger.

What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.

Living in a constant chase after gain compels people to expend their spirit to the point of exhaustion.

Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them.

Ye shall only have foes to be hated; but not foes to be despised: ye must be proud of your foes.

The followers of a great man often put their eyes out, so that they may be the better able to sing his praise.

Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity.

Women want to serve, and this is where their happiness lies: but the free spirit does not want to be served, and this is where hishappiness lies.

Free will without fate is no more conceivable than spirit without matter, good without evil.

Many writers are neither spirit nor wine, but rather spirits- of-wine: they can catch fire, and then they give off heat.

There is nothing for which men ask to be paid dearer than for humiliation.

One pays dearly for being immortal: one must die many times during his life.

Precisely this is godliness -- that there are gods, but no God.

It is only those who know how to feel that this is not good who devise improvements.

In many people, incidentally, the gift of having good friends is much greater than the gift of being a good friend.

I live in my own place -- have never copied anyone even half, and at any master who lacks the grace -- to laugh at himself -- I laugh.

The sick are the greatest danger for the healthy; it is not from the strongest that harm comes to the strong, but from the weakest.

What have we in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew is lying upon it?

One is fruitful only at the cost of being rich in contradictions.

In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless.

Human, all too human.

Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit, and forces us to be strong.

He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.

Human life is inexplicable, and still without meaning: a fool may decide its fate.

It is a prejudice to think that morality is more favourable to the development of reason than immorality.

Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics; they desire our blood not our pain.

Physician, heal thyself: then wilt thou also heal thy patient. Let it be his best cure to see with his eyes him who maketh himself whole.

Many die too late, and some die too early. Yet strangers soundeth the precept: Die at the right time!

For nothing is more democratic than logic; it is no respecter of persons and makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses.

Morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions ... I abhore Christianity with a deadly hatred.

Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.

And if you gaze for long enough into an abyss, the abyss gazes also gazes into you.

The child as a monument to the passion of two people; the will to oneness in two.

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.

One is not converted to christianity; one must be morbid enough for it.

If that glad message of your Bible were written in your faces, you would not need to demand belief in the authority of that book in such stiff-necked fashion.

All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has ever escaped from their hands alive.

No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.

However closely people are attached to one another, their mutual horizon nonetheless includes all four compass directions, and nowand again they notice it.

The great advantage in noble parentage is that enables one to endure poverty more easily.

We are noble, good, beautiful, and happy!

A philosophical mythology lies concealed in language, which breaks out again at every moment, no matter how cautious we may be.

In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.

The philosopher is lacking who interprets the deed and does not merely transpose it.

Every step forward is made at the cost of mental and physical pain to someone.

A book calls for pen, ink, and a writing desk; today the rule is that pen, ink, and a writing desk call for a book.

Having a talent is not enough: one must also have your permission to have it -- right, my friends?

Pathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness.

That roguish and cheerful vice, politeness.

Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.

A hearty meal is easier to digest than one that is too small.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones but by extreme positions of the opposite kind.

One who dresses in rags that have been washed clean dresses cleanly to be sure, but raggedly nonetheless.

The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own -- that is, for his age -- so as to be able even then to take pleasure in himself.

The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a wheel rolling on its own, a prime movement, a sacred Yes.

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.

As though the Truth were such an innocent and incompetent creature as to require protectors!

The quality of a marriage is proven by its ability to tolerate an occasional exception.

Without meaning, without substance, without aim: a mere 'public opinion'.

Brave people may be persuaded to an action by representing it as being more dangerous than it really is.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

The rights which a man arrogates to himself are relative to the duties which he sets himself, and to the tasks which he feels capable of performing.

Assuming that we have trained our imagination to denounce the past, we will not suffer much from unfulfilled wishes.