Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche
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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.