838 Inspiring Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche

Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.

If all alms were given only from pity, all beggars would have starved long ago.

The doer alone learneth.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

No conqueror believes in chance.

Amor Fati -- "Love Your Fate", which is in fact your life.

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?

Similes, are all names of good and evil; they do not speak out, they only hint. A fool who seeketh knowledge from them!

Many deeds are done so as to forget another deed: there are also opiate activities. I exist so that another will be forgotten.

Respectability offends my taste.

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.

Men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play.

Here is the great city: here have you nothing to seek and everything to lose.

They fear their higher self, because when it speaks, it speaks demandingly.

In letting God sit in judgment they judge themselves; in glorifying God they glorify themselves.

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

A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.

It is not for nothing that one has been a philologist, perhaps one is a philologist still, that is to say, a teacher of slow reading.

One who has given up any hope of winning a fight or has clearly lost it wants his style in fighting to be admired all the more.

Never to read another book that was born and baptized (with ink) at the same time.

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

Immortal is the moment when I engendered the recurrence. For the sake of this moment I bear the recurrence.

Once you were apes, yet even now man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

Man is more ape than many of the apes.

Speaking is a beautiful folly; with that man dances over all things.

Great men's errors are to be venerated as more fruitful than little men's truths.

I love him who loveth his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.

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

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.

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

Everyone thinks that the principal thing to the tree is the fruit, but in point of fact the principal thing to it is the seed.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.

Modern marriage has lost its meaning -- consequently it is being abolished.

Your only problem, perhaps, is that you scream without letting yourself cry.

Energy wasted on negative ends.

In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops.

Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

If we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how.

A nation that still believes in itself holds fast to its own god.

Insanity in individuals is something rare -- but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Whom do you call bad? -- Those who always want to induce shame.

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

People who, out of an inborn moderation, leave every glass standing only half-emptied refuse to admit that everything in the world has its sediments and dregs.

There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.

Foolish is my happiness, and foolish things will it speak: it is still too young--so have patience with it!

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.

Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of today -- burning us.

One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.

The minds of others I know well;
But who I am I cannot tell.

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

In the true man there is a child concealed who wants to play.

Even today a crude sort of persecution is all that is required to create an honorable name for any sect, no matter how indifferent in itself.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

The ascetic makes a necessity of virtue.

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

A man who wills commands something within himself that renders obedience, or that he believes renders obedience.

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.

Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape.

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

The inclination to self-depreciation, to freely accepting being robbed, being duped, and being swindled, could be the modesty of a god among men.

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

A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions.

Visiting the sick' is an orgasm of superiority in the contemplation of our neighbor's helplessness.

O sky above me, you modest, glowing sky! O you, my happiness before sunrise! Day is coming: so let us part!

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

Underneath the reality in which we live and have our being, another altogether different reality lies concealed.

The real world is much smaller than the imaginary.

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable.

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

The lack of closeness among friends is a fault that cannot be reprimanded without becoming incurable.

One can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by anyone.

It is not doubt,is certitude that drives you mad.

So live your life of obedience and of war! What matter about long life! What warrior wisheth to be spared!

All I need is a sheet of paper
and something to write with, and then
I can turn the world upside down.

We must understand how to hide in darkness in order to escape the gnat-swarms of utterly annoying admirers.

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

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.

What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.

One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.

Today 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?

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

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

Though the favorites of the Gods die young, they also live eternally in the company of Gods.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

Help thyself: then everyone will help thee too. Principle of Christian charity.

One begins to mistrust very clever people when they become embarrassed.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

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

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

Love is more afraid of change than destruction.

The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.

I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.

The greatest giver of alms is cowardice.

Where the past is venerated the clean and those who clean things up should be kept out. Piety is never happy without a little dust, dirt, and rubbish.

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

It is not things, but opinions about things that have absolutely no existence, which have so deranged mankind!

Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.

Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity-and finally liberty is bestowed by sleep.

Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.

I and me are always too deeply in conversation.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

I welcome all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour!

He turns all of his injuries into strengths, that which does not kill him makes him stronger, he is superman.

A sure way to irritate people and to put evil thoughts into their heads is to keep them waiting a long time. This makes them immoral.

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.

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.

The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual and he does not call it poison.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

And if a friend does you wrong, then say: "I forgive you what you have done to me; that you have done it to YOURSELF, however -- how could I forgive that!

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

Seducing one's neighbor to a good opinion and then afterwards believing devoutly in this neighbor's opinion -- who can match women in this clever ploy?

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

It is possible to imagine a society flushed with such a sense of power that it could afford to let its offenders go unpunished.

Away from God and gods did this will lure me: what would there be to create if gods existed?

One never perishes through anybody but oneself.

In a certain state it is indecent to live longer.

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

The best belongs to me and mine; and if we are not given it, we take it: the best food, the purest sky, the most robust thoughts, the fairest women!

Lust and self-mutilation are closely related impulses. There are also self-mutilators among knowers: they do not want to be creators under any circumstances.

Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself.

Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

Fall down seven times, stand up eight. -- Chinese proverbWithout music, life would be a mistake.

Our greatest experiences are our quietest moments.

The great works are produced in such an ecstasy of love that they must always be unworthy of it, however great their worth otherwise.

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

Not to be cowardly when it comes to our own actions! Not to leave them in the lurch! -- The sting of conscience is indecent.

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

The purpose of criminal law is to punish the enemies of those in power.

Impoliteness is frequently the sign of an awkward modesty that loses its head when surprised and hopes to conceal this with rudeness.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Happiness is a fata morgana. the only way to not end up unhappy is to not long for happiness.

The value of life itself cannot be estimated.

Curiosity creeps into the houses of the unfortunate and the needy under the name of duty or of pity.

Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical.

Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

On the heights it is warmer than those in the valley imagine.

Emerson is a person who lives instinctively on ambrosia -- and leaves everything indigestible on his plate.

Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity.

A letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude surprises. One ought to reserve an hour a week for receiving letters and afterwards take a bath.

They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer; and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!

A high civilization is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base; its primary prerequisite is a strong and soundly consolidated mediocrity.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

How do you expect to learn to dance when you have not even learned to walk! And above the dancer is still the flyer and his bliss.

Every god-man created his own god: and there is no worse enmity on earth than that between gods.

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it.

Men who think deeply appear to be comedians in their dealings with others because they always have to feign superficiality in order to be understood.

The love of truth has its reward in heaven and even on earth.

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.

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

None of the people have any real interest in a science, who only begin to be enthusiastic about it when they themselves have made discoveries in it.

Only those who continue to change remain my kin.

If you wish to understand a philosopher, do not ask what he says, but find out what he wants.

The love of one sole being is a barbarism; for it will be employed to the detriment of all the rest. So too the love of God.

Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody's equal.

One never dives into the water to save a drowning man more eagerly than when there are others present who dare not take the risk.

A Dionysian life task needs the hardness of the hammer and one of its first essentials is without doubt the joy to be found even in destruction.

This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously.

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

You cannot learn to fly by flying. First you must learn to walk, to run, to climb, to dance.

One should never know too precisely whom one has married.

The empty, the one, the unmoved, the full, satiation, wanting nothing -- that would be my evil: in short, dreamless sleep.

I deny morality as I deny alchemy.

The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it.

To have to fight the instincts -- that is the definition of decadence: as long as life is ascending, happiness equals instinct.

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.

A vocation is the backbone of life.

The Christian church is an encyclopedia of prehistoric cults.

Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.

Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip.

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

The job of rearing a child consists of making conscious activities unconscious.

Happiness is the feeling that power increases -- that resistance is being overcome.

The best friend will probably acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is founded on the talent for friendship.

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

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.

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

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

I am no man, I am dynamite.

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

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

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

Our body is simply a social structure made of many souls.

After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?.

I demand from a book harmony as unity and moderation; that determines the choice of words, the type and number of metaphors, the development and conclusion.

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

We must repay goodness and wickedness: but why exactly to the person who has done us a good or a wicked turn?

In the dark, time feels different than when it is light.

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!

Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.

Our destiny rules over us, even when we are not yet aware of it; it is the future that makes laws for our today.

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

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

What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.

Systems of morals are only a sign-language of the emotions.

Only idiots fail to contradict themselves three times a day.

Become who you are.

The weak and misbegotten shall perish: first principle of our brotherly love. And they shall be given every assistance.

The world itself is the will to power -- and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power -- and nothing else!

A man who whinnies with noisy laughter, surpasses all the animals in vulgarity.

The most dangerous physicians are those born actors who imitate born physicians with a perfectly deceptive guile.

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

Only where there are graves are there resurrections.

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

Plato was a bore.

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

The danger of our culture.- We belong to a period of which the culture is in danger of being destroyed by the appliances of culture.

If virtue goes to sleep, it will be more vigorous when it awakes.

Even cohabitation has been corrupted -- by marriage.

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

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

In the mountains of truth, you never climb in vain.

I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding.

It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.

Nobody is more inferior than those who insist on being equal.

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

Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.

From which stars have we fallen to meet each other here?

But one thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and another thing is the idea of the deed. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them.

When one rows it is not the rowing which moves the ship: rowing is only a magical ceremony by means of which one compels a demon to move the ship.

There is no better soporific and sedative than skepticism.

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.

Pure logic is the impossibility by means of which science is maintained.

No one dies of fatal truths nowadays: there are too many antidotes.

And this do I call immaculate perception of all things: to want nothing else from them, but to be allowed to lie before them as a mirror with a hundred facets.

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

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

The flame is not as bright to itself as it is to those it illuminates: so too the sage.

Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.

Probability but no truth, facility but no freedom -- it is owing to these two fruits that the tree of knowledge cannot be confused with the tree of life.

Whatever is gold does not glitter. A gentle radiance belongs to the noblest metal.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Time flies apace-we would fain believe that everything flies forward with it.

I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.

I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.

Men are cowards when it comes to the "eternally feminine": and the little women know it.

Woman was God's second mistake.

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

You say that I should be your teacher! See to it that I am your pinion and not your brake.

Every man in creating the beautiful appearance of the dream worlds is a perfect artist.

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

The humanity of famous intellectuals lies in being wrong with gracious courtesy when dealing with those who are not famous.

Every talent must unfold itself in fighting.

Was that life?' I want to say to death. 'Well then! Once more!

Thinking about suicide is a potent consolation: it helps us to get through many a bad night.

Man is something that should be overcome.

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

My idea of paradise is a straight line to goal.

You lack the courage to be consumed in flames and to become ashes: so you will never become new, and never young again!

Water is sufficient...the spirit moves over water.

The most fatal seductive lie that has yet existed.

If a man wishes to become a hero, then the serpent must first become a dragon: otherwise he lacks his proper enemy.

We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption, but how near or distant that is, nobody knows- not even God.

He who has not a hard heart when young, will never have one.

If the all powerful god controls satan he is an accomplice, and if he doesn't, he is not an all powerful god.

Christianity is religion for the executioner.

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

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life.

First principle: one must need strength, otherwise one will never have it.

I overcame myself, the sufferer; I carried my own ashes to the mountains; I invented a brighter flame for myself.

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

The destiny of mankind is arranged for happy moments every life has such but not for happy times.

If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs.

Live so that thou mayest desire to live again -- that is thy duty -- for in any case thou wilt live again!

In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.

The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.

Certitude drives people mad.

Bad cooks -- and the utter lack of reason in the kitchen -- have delayed human development longest and impaired it most.

Few serve truth in truth because only few have the pure will to be just, and of those again very few have the strength to be just.

But having quills is a waste, even a double luxury when one can choose not to have quills but open hands.

Verily, I do not want to be like the ropemakers: They drag out their threads and always walk backwards.

Very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions--? Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions.

Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.

And I offer you this parable: Not a few who sought to cast out their devil entered into the swine themselves.

Nothing in life possesses value except the degree of power -- assuming that life itself is the will to power.

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

The disgust with dirt can be so great that it keeps us from cleaning ourselves -- from "justifying" ourselves.

Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches and in punishment there is so much that is festive!

What does it matter whether I am shown to be right! I am right too much! -- And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Every profound spirit needs a mask.

Thinking of yourself as a destiny, not wanting to be 'other' than you are -that is under such circumstances the highest wisdom".

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

We are franker towards others than towards ourselves.

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

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

I want to teach men the sense of their existence, which is the Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud man.

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

Love forgives the lover even his lust.

The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity; nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.

Madness is not a consequence of uncertainty but of certainty.

Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.

There are two types of genius; one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth.

If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take hashish.

The gilded sheath of pity sometimes covers the dagger of envy.

Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity.

Human, all too human.

You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive you for that.

It is obvious that all sense has gone out of modern marriage; which is, however, no objection to marriage but to modernity.

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

Where does one not find that bland degeneration which beer produces in the spirit!

You know a moment is important when it is making your mind go numb with beauty.

There is an old illusion. It is called good and evil.

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

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

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

To the good warrior soundeth "thou shalt" pleasanter than "I will." And all that is dear unto you, ye shall first have it commanded unto you.

Not joy is the mother of dissipation, but joylessness.

You want to be paid as well, you virtuous! You want reward for virtue, and heaven for earth, and eternity for your today?

There is a stupid humility that is quite common and when a person is afflicted with it, he is once and for all disqualified for being a disciple of knowledge.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

The most fundamental form of human stupidity is forgetting what we were trying to do in the first place.

What is Genius?- To aspire to a lofty aim and to will the means to that aim.

Courage is the best slayer -- courage which attacketh, for in every attack there is the sound of triumph.

Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.

And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, ''I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?

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

Creation is the great redemption from suffering and all life's growing light. But the creator must be suffering if needed and accept much change.

A refined nature is vexed by knowing that some one owes it thanks, a coarse nature by knowing that it owes thanks to some one.

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

Without music, life would be a mistake.

A heart full of courage and cheerfulness needs a little danger from time to time, or the world gets unbearable.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

If you want me to believe in your redeemer, you are going to have to look a lot more redeemed.

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

Fear is the mother of morality.

Many are obstinate with regard to the pathway once they have set upon it, few with regard to the goal.

The love of power is the demon of mankind.

Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life: with its own torment it increases its own knowledge. Did you already know that?

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.

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

Fathers and sons are much more considerate of one another than mothers and daughters.

Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy.

Nothing is more pathological in our pathological modernity than this disease of Christian pity.

One must repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill?

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different.

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.

Evil men have no songs." How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?

That which is done out of love is always beyond good and evil.

One day soon you will meet a man, and he will rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and it is my greatest hope that he will not give you syphilis.

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

The rising and falling of the scales of pride and humility sustain the brooding mind as well as the alternations of desire and peace of the soul.

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

We should conserve evil just as we should conserve the forests. It is true that by thinning and clearing the forests the earth grew warmer.

Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind.

How little is required for pleasure! The sound of a bagpipe -- without music, life would be an error.

I love him who justifieth the future ones, and redeemeth the past ones: for he is willing to succumb through the present ones.

One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.

One lives for the day, one lives very fast, one lives very irresponsibly: precisely this is called "freedom.

What the father kept silent the son speaks out.

It is terrible to die of thirst in the ocean. Do you have to salt your truth so heavily that it does not even-quench thirst any more?

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.

I love the valiant; but it is not enough to wield a broadsword, one must also know against whom.

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

Does not the discipline of the scientific spirit just commence when one no longer harbours any conviction?

That God became man indicates only this: that man should not seek his salvation in eternity, but rather establish his heaven on earth.

A living being seeks, above all, to discharge its strength. Life is will to power.

If there is to be art, if there is to be any aesthetic doing and seeing, one physiological condition is indispensable: frenzy.

But he who is hated by the people, as the wolf by the dogs -- is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.

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.

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 good things were formerly bad things; every original sin has turned into an original virtue.

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

The idealist is incorrigible: if he is thrown out of his heaven he makes an ideal of his hell.

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

Free from what? What does that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, shall your eye show to me: free for what?

They climb the mountain like beasts, stupid and sweating; it seems that no one bothered to tell them that there are beautiful vistas along the way.

For the objective of all human arrangements is through distracting one's thoughts to cease to be aware of life.

The word Christianity is already a misunderstanding -- in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.

Love, too, has to be learned.

Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art.

Among twelve apostles there must always be one who is as hard as stone, so that the new church may be built upon him.

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

The wheel and the brake have different duties, but also one in common: to hurt one another.

What is done out of love always occurs beyond good and evil.

Our sense of the tragic waxes and wanes with our sensuality.

Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

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

However unchristian it may seem, I do not even bear any ill feeling towards myself.

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

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

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

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.

We are praised or blamed, as the one or the other may be expedient, for displaying to advantage our power of discernment.

Have you noticed there are no interesting people in heaven? -Just a hint to the girls as to where they can find their salvation.

What good is all this free-thinking, modernity, and turncoat flexibility if at some gut level you are still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a priest!

It takes physical courage to indulge in wickedness. The "good" are too cowardly to do it.

With one more talent one frequently stands with greater instability than with one less, as a table stands better on three legs than on four.

Too long, the earth has been a madhouse!

Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, "know thyself," but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe.
It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.

I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causeth his down-going.

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

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

All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

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

Generally speaking, the greater a woman's beauty, the greater her modesty.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

The good-they cannot create; they are always the beginning of the end.

Pathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness.

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

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

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

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

The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.

Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.

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

Little prigs and three-quarter madmen may have the conceit that the laws of nature are constantly broken for their sakes.

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

I am really very, very tired of everything -- more than tired.

The heart and hand of those who always mete out become callous from always meting out.

If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent.

Some men are born posthumously.

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

Every past is worth condemning.

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.

And so while dreams are the individual man's play with reality, the sculptor's art is (in a broader sense) the play with dreams.

The kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart -- not something that comes upon the earth or after death.

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.

There was at all events one advantage in the choice of this day to my birth; my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day of public rejoicing.

Higher than "thou shalt" stands "I will" (the heroes), and higher than "I will" stands "I am" (the Greek gods).

This -- is now my way: where is yours?' Thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way'. For the way -- does not exist!

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

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

The more a person indulges himself the less others are willing to indulge him.

Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster.

It is the evening that questions thus from within me.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

One must learn to be a sponge if one wants to be loved by hearts that overflow.

The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: Humility.

The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second-best thing for you -- is to die soon.

There is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice.

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

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

I desire that your conjectures should not reach beyond your creative will. Could you create a god? Then do not speak to me of any gods.

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.

Only you must have worthy foes hate, but not enemies worthy of contempt. You must be proud of your enemy.

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

Linguistic danger to spiritual freedom.- Every word is a prejudice.

Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.

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

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

People live for the morrow, because the day-after-to-morrow is doubtful.

On every parable you ride to every truth.

No power can be maintained when it is only represented by hypocrites.

The State is the coldest of all cold monsters, and coldly it tells lies, and this lie drones on from its mouth: 'I, the State, am the people'.

As a human being Plato mingles regal, exclusive, and self-contained features with melancholy compassion.

If one seeks relief from unbearable pressure, one is to eat hashish.

The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.

Behold, I am weary of my wisdom,
like a bee that has gathered too much honey;
I need hands outstretched to receive it.

The ability to suffer is a small matter -- weak women and even slaves can acheive virtuosity in that.

I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman without a single drop of bad blood -- certainly not German blood.

Man, a hybrid of plant and ghost.

Love ever your neighbour as yourselves -- but first be such as love themselves.

One is punished most for one's virtues.

It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.

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

In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

Show me that you are redeemed, and I will believe in your Redeemer.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god.

What saved me then? Nothing but pregnancy. And each time after I had given birth to my work my life hung suspended by a thin thread.

The great periods of our life occur when we gain the courage to rechristen what is bad about us as what is best.

He who does not need to lie is proud of not being a liar.

One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

Was that -- life?" I will say to death. "Very well! Once more!

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

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

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

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

Lust is only a sweet poison for the weakling, but for those who will with a lion's heart it is the reverently reserved wine of wines.

All great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks, in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity.

He 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?

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.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions -- as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

Mistrust those in whom the urge to punish is strong.

That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.

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.

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

The object of convalescence ought to be to turn our attention to life: at other times, simply to our tasks!

In order to be somebody you have to hold even your shadow in high regard.

Towards gnats and fleas we should show no pity. We would do right to hang petty thieves, petty calumniators, and slanderers.

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

All that is rare is for the rare.

Remorse. -- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.

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.

A refined soul is distressed to know that someone owes it thanks; a crude soul, to know that it owes someone thanks.

Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre. As one climbs higher, life becomes ever harder, the coldness increases, responsibility increases.

The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned.

And life confided the secret to me: behold, it said, l am that which must always overcome itself.

We must take precautions against being prematurely honed sharp -- since at the same time we are being prematurely honed thin.

There are two things a real man likes -- danger and play; and he likes woman because she is the most dangerous of play things.

Die Forderung, geliebt zu werden, ist die größte der Anmaßungen.

Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable.

I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favour, and who then asketh: "Am I a dishonest player?" -- for he is willing to succumb.

The one seeks a midwife to deliver his thoughts, the other, someone to assist: thus a good conversation comes into being.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

Many a peacock hides his peacock tail from all eyes -- and calls it his pride.

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

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

Live dangerously.

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

Love and hatred are not blind, but are blinded by the fire they bear within themselves.

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

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope!

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!

I measure the strength of a spirit by how much truth it can take.

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

To act as a physician, the priest must make one sick.

Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off.

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

Let woman be a plaything, pure and fine, like a precious stone, illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come.

What an age experiences as evil is usually an untimely reverberation echoing what was previously experienced as good -- the atavismof an older ideal.

Some mothers need happy children; others need unhappy ones-otherwise they cannot prove their maternal virtues.

When we are awake we do the same thing as when we are dreaming: we
first invent and create the people we are dealing with -- and then forget it
immediately.

Do you love tragedies and everything that breaks the heart?

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.

I love him who maketh his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.

You say a good cause justifies any war; but I say a good war justifies any cause.

Every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel, gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous.

We are most unfair to God; we do not allow Him to sin.

Whoever 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.

We are noble, good, beautiful, and happy!

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

Even truthfulness is but one means to knowledge, a ladder -- but not the ladder.

There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.

The truthful man ends up realizing that he always lies.

Science and art have that in common that everyday things seem to them new and attractive.

Pity makes suffering contagious.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

How pleasant is the sound of even bad music and bad motives when we are setting out to march against an enemy!

When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher.

The value of a man can only be measured with regard to other men.

Each word of Heraclitus expresses the pride and the majesty of truth, but of truth grasped in intuitions rather than attained by the rope ladder of logic.

Moral sensibilities are nowadays at such cross-purposes that to one man a morality is proved by its utility, while to another its utility refutes it.

One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.

That the world is a divine game and beyond good and evil:Min this the Vedanta philosophy and Heraclitus are my predecessors.

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

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

They're so cold, these scholars!
May lightning strike their food
so that their mouths learn how
to eat fire!

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

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

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

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

He who laughs best today, will also laugh last.

Yet where is your inner value when you no longer know what it is to breathe freely; when you no longer have freedom over your own selves.

What does a philosopher demand of himself, first and last? To overcome his time in himself, to become "timeless.

You must await your thirst and allow it to become complete: otherwise you will never discover your spring, which can never be anyone else's!

No one is such a liar as the indignant man.

We ought to face our destiny with courage.

There would be no sunshine in society if the born flatterers, I mean the so-called amiable people, did not bring it in with them.

If ye would go up high, then use your own legs! Do not get yourselves carried aloft; do not seat yourselves on other people's backs and heads!

There is always some madness in love.

Faith actually moves no mountains, but instead raises them up where there were none before.

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

Those that achieve anything that looks beyond the vision and thinking of their peers provoke jealousy and hatred disguised as the ordinary.

Women are quite able to make friends with a man; but to preserve such a friendship -- that no doubt requires the assistance of a slight physical antipathy.

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

It is not when it is dangerous to tell the truth that its advocates are hardest to find, but when it is boring.

The greater the obstacle the more glory in overcoming it. -- What does not destroy makes me stronger.

I am Zarathustra the Godless: where shall I find my equal? All those who give themselves their own will and renounce all submission, they are my equals.

A people is nature's roundabout way of getting six or seven great men. --
Yes: and then of getting around them.

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

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

In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many.

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

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

One always has exaggerated ideas about what one doesn't know.

There they laugh: they do not understand me; I am not the mouth for these ears.

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

Annoyance is a physical malady that is in no way cured just because the annoying situation that causes it is eliminated.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

Worldly Wisdom Do not stay in the field! Nor climb out of sight. The best view of the world Is from a medium height.

One must never have spared oneself, one must have acquired hardness as a habit to be cheerful and in good spirits in the midst of nothing but hard truths.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

It is the music in our conscience, the dance in our spirit, to which Puritan litanies, moral sermons, and goody goodness won't chime.

When thou goest to woman, take thy whip.

The errors of great men are venerable because they are more fruitful than the truths of little men.

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 discipline of suffering, of great suffering -- do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has produced all the elevations of humanity so far?

The great man fights the elements in his time that hinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and sincerity.

There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty.

When we cannot stand certain people, we try to have suspicions about them.

Smooth ice is paradise for those who dance with expertise.

We have to learn how to come out of unclean situations cleaner than we were, and even how to wash ourselves with dirty water whenwe need to.

There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause.

One must not let oneself be misled: they say 'Judge not!' but they send to Hell everything that stands in their way.

If a man have a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.

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

A life without music is an error.

Life is an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power.

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

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

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

Discontent is the seed of ethics.

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

The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes.

Battle not with monsters lest you become one.

I love him who wants to create over and beyond himself and thus perishes.

Man is the cruelest animal.

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.

Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age.

Books for general reading always smell bad; the odor of common people hangs around them.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people.

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

Never trust a thought that didn't come by walking.

Human existence basically is──a never to be completed imperfect tense.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.

Out of a brotherly love we occasionally embrace this or that somebody (because we cannot embrace everybody): but we must never letour somebody know it.

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

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

Throw roses into the abyss and say: 'here is my thanks to the monster who didn't succeed in swallowing me alive.

If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.

Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.

Give me today, for once, the worst throw of your dice, destiny. Today I transmute everything into gold.

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

A man as he ought to be: that sounds to us as insipid as "a tree as it ought to be.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

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

I will believe in the Redeemer when the Christians look a little more redeemed.

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

Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive -- so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.

I notice that Autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.

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

Since I grew weary of the search
I taught myself to find instead
Since cross winds caused my ship to lurch
I sail with all winds straight ahead.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

Our way is upward, from the species across to the super-species. But the degenerate mind which says ‘All for me' is a horror to us.

The weak and the botched shall perish: first principle of our charity.

Women are considered deep -- why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.

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

Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.

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

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

Laughter means: taking a mischievous delight in someone else's uneasiness, but with a good conscience.

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

What was silent in the father speaks in the son, and often I found in the son the unveiled secret of the father.

Dostoevsky,the only psychologist from whom I've anything to learn.

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

Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.

If you know the why, you can live any how.

Three metamorphoses of the spirit I relate to you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.

I cook every chance in my pot. And only when it is cooked through do I welcome it as my food.

What really raises one's indignation against suffering is not suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.

Do you want to have an easy life? Then always stay with the herd and lose yourself in the herd.

A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at bottom comes up."
―Epigrams and Interludes, Section 79.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Epicurus had rage and envy of Plato's superior style.

Untroubled, scornful, outrageous -- that is how wisdom wants us to be: she is a woman and never loves anyone but a warrior.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence -- not detachment and objectivity.

It is doubtful whether anyone who has travelled widely has found anywhere in the world regions more ugly than in the human face.

In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species.

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 pleasurein himself.

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

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Perhaps no one as yet has been truthful enough about what "truthfulness" is.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

I believe only in French culture and consider everything in Europe that calls itself 'culture' a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture.

With their virtues they want to scratch out the eyes of their enemies; and they elevate themselves only that they may lower others.

I love him who desireth not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.

Where I found the living, there I found the will to power; even in the will of servants I found the will to be master.

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

Some people do not become thinkers simply because their memories are too good.

The more thoroughly a person understands life, the less he will mock, though in the end he might still mock the "thoroughness of his understanding.

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

But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of suffering : that is great, that belongs to greatness.

Excess of strength alone is proof of strength.

I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

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

The sedentary life...is the real sin against the holy spirit.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

How lovely it is that there are words and sounds. Are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things which are eternally apart?

Is language the adequate expression of all realities?

New ways I go, a new speech comes to me; weary I grow, like all creators, of the old tongues. My spirit no longer wants to walk on worn soles.

A little poison now and then: that makes for pleasant dreams. And a lot of poison at the end, for a pleasant death.

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.

How much disgruntled heaviness, lameness, dampness, how much beer is there in the German intelligence.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

He who is not a bird should not build his nest over abysses.

There have been two great narcotics in European civilisation: Christianity and alcohol.

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

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, is the consequence of courage, of toughness towards oneself, of sincerity to oneself.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them, is not something dreadful also.

I am a prelude to better players, O my brothers! An example! Follow my example!

The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.

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

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.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

Horrible experiences lead us to wonder whether the person who experiences them might not be something horrible.

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is to regard everybody merely as a means to one's own ends, or of no account whatever.

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

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

But are there many honest people who will admit that it is pleasing to give pain?

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

Creating-that is the great salvation from suffering.

Such a man as instinctively feeds on pure ambrosia and leaves alone the indigestible in things.

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

The one who had lost the world attains its own world.

The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God.

When I seek another word for 'music', I never find any other word than 'Venice'

Reality is captured in the categorical nets of Language only at the expense of fatal distortion.

The dyed-in-the-wool teacher takes everything seriously only with respect to his students -- himself included.

Through searching out origins, one becomes a crab. The historian looks backwards, and finally he also believes backwards.

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

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

The lie is a condition of life.

The Germans are incapable of any conception of greatness: proof Schumann.

And when your soul becometh great, then doth it become haughty, and in your sublimity there is wickedness.

You shall become the person you are.

Life is a well of joy; but for those out of whom an upset stomach speaks, which is the father of melancholy, all wells are poisoned.

A real fox calls sour not only those grapes that he cannot reach but also those that he has reached and taken away from others.

It is very noble hypocrisy not to talk of one's self.

In art the end does not sanctify the means: but sacred means employed here can sanctify the end.

In the stream.- Mighty waters draw much stone and rubble along with them; mighty spirits many stupid and bewildered heads.

The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow.

My philosophy is inverted Platonism: the further a thing is from true being, the purer, the lovelier, the better it is. Living inillusion as a goal!

I hate you most because you attract, but are not strong enough to pull me to you.

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

The beast lives unhistorically; for it 'goes into' the present, like a number, without leaving any curious remainder.

The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.

Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary.

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

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

I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.

The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie.

We are in the greatest danger of being run over when we have just gotten out of the way of a carriage.

Faith means the will to avoid knowing what is true.

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

The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters.

Every man has his price. This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing.

I have not come to know atheism as a result of logical reasoning and still less as an event in my life: in me it is a matter of instinct.

The surest sign that two people no longer speak the same language is that both say ironic things to one another but that neither senses the irony.

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

Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.

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

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

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? oh my friends, then you also said yes to all pain. all things are linked, entwined, in love with one another.

What the philosopher is seeking is not truth, but rather the metamorphosis of the world into man.

He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.

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

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

I teach you beyond Man (superman). Man is something that shall be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?

For the creator to be himself the child that is newly born, he must also want to be the birth-giver and the pain of the birth-giver.

Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.).

We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we percieve that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.

The wittiest authors evoke a barely perceptible smile.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.

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

In a seriously intended intellectual emancipation a person's mute passions and cravings also hope to find their advantage.

That one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backwards, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it… but love it.

Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.

The pure soul is a pure lie.

You say, it's dark. And in truth, I did place a cloud before your sun. But do you not see how the edges of the cloud are already glowing and turning light.

The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever fathom their depths -- they haven't any.

Ah, there are so many things betwixt heaven and earth of which only the poets have dreamed!

It is not in how one soul approaches another but in how it withdraws that I knowr its affinity and solidarity with the other.

Spirit is life which itself cutteth into life: by its own torture doth it increase its own knowledge, -- did ye know that before?

That which intoxicates, the sensually ecstatic, the sudden surprise, the urge to be profoundly stirred at any price -- dreadful tendencies!

The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower.

The higher man is distinguished from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune.

I am not a human being, I am dynamite.

Most people are far too much occupied with themselves to be malicious.

Every master has but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for master-ship.

The Antichrist, Section 7.

This crown to crown the laughing man, this rose-wreath crown: I myself have set this crown upon my head, I myself have pronounced my laughter holy.

Diese räucherigen, stubenwarmen, verbrauchten, vergrünten, vergrämelten Seelen -- wie könnte ihr Neid mein Glück ertragen!

I teach you the Overman. Man is something which shall be surpassed.