Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche (Page 3 of 4)

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 achieve 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.

The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.

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.

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.

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

Sometimes in conversation the sound of our own voice distracts us and misleads us into making assertions that in no way express our true opinions.

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

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

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

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

On every parable you ride to every truth.

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Whatever we think about and question a lot becomes questionable.

The Christian church is an encyclopedia of prehistoric cults.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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!

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

One is punished most for one's virtues.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

All great artists and thinkers are great workers.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the life eternal!

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

The truthful man ends up realizing that he always lies.

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.

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

The inability to lie is far from the love of truth.

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

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

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

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

Not joy is the mother of dissipation, but joylessness.

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

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

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

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'.

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

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

There is always some madness in love.

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

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

Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing.

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.

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

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?

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

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

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.

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

Plato was a bore.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Creating-that is the great salvation from suffering.

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

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

I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.

There is no better soporific and sedative than skepticism.

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

Live dangerously.

What does your conscience say? -- 'You should become the person you are'.

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

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

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

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.

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

Every past is worth condemning.

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.

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.

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

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.

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