Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche (Page 3 of 6)

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And if ye cannot be saints of knowledge, then, I pray you, be at least its warriors. They are the companions and forerunners of such saintship.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

I love him who reserveth no share of spirit for himself, but wanteth to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus walketh he as spirit over the bridge.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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.

But eternal liveliness is what counts: what does eternal life matter, or life at all?

A vocation is the backbone of life.

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

Love forgives the lover even his lust.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.

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

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

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

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.

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

All that is rare is for the rare.

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.

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

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

The pure soul is a pure lie.

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

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

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

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.

Against war it may be said that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished revengeful.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life.

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

All contempt for the sexual life, all denigration under the concept 'impure is the essential crime against Life- against the Holy Spirit of Life.

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

My idea of paradise is a straight line to goal.

He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

You shall become the person you are.

Only idiots fail to contradict themselves three times a day.

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!

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Under conditions of peace the warlike man attacks himself.

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

A life without music is an error.

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

The wittiest authors evoke a barely perceptible smile.

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

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

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.

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

Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.

I am weary of my wisdom, like a bee that has gathered too much honey. I need hands that reach out.

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

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

Willing sets you free: that is the true doctrine of will and freedom -- thus Zarathustra instructs you.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Every profound spirit needs a mask.

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

One's own self is well hidden from one's own self; of all mines of treasure, one's own is the last to be dug up.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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