Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

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

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.

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

If we have injured someone, giving him the opportunity to make a joke about us is often enough to provide him personal satisfaction, or even to win his good will.

The state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies-and whatever it has, it has stolen.

There is no more dangerous error than that of mistaking the consequence for the cause.

Around the hero everything turns into a tragedy, around the demigod, a satyr-play, and around God--what? perhaps a "world"?

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

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

Let thy virtue be too high for the familiarity of names, and if thou must speak of it, be not ashamed to stammer about it.

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

Creating-that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's alleviation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, and much transformation.

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.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

Ultimately one loves one's desires and not that which is desired.

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

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

To become the founder of a new religion one must be psychologically infallible in one's knowledge of a certain average type of souls who have not yet recognized that they belong together.

God is dead, but considering the state the species man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.

Everyone needs a sense of shame, but no one needs to feel ashamed.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.

Forgetting: that is a divine capacity. And whoever aspires to the heights and wants to fly must cast off much that is heavy and make himself light--I call it a divine capacity for lightness.

Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough customs, thus is learnt the subjection of the individual, and strenuousness of character becomes a birth gift and afterwards is fostered as a habit.

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

Existence begins in every instant.

Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain.

The love of indulgence is rooted in the depths of a man's heart. His soul would prefer to share the excessive and unrestrained; but his soul cannot love.

In the whole of the New Testament there is not one joke, that fact alone would invalidate any book.

A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.

The scaffolding must be removed once the house is built.

no one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any

When we talk in company we lose our unique tone of voice, and this leads us to make statements which in no way correspond to our real thoughts.

One man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to loose himself. Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison for you.

I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding

If Islam despises Christianity, it has a thousandfold right to do so: Islam at least assumes that it is dealing with men.

I want to know whether you are a person devoted to creating or to exchanging in some respect or other: as a creator you belong tothe free, as an exchanger you are their slave and instrument.

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

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

History belongs above all to the man...who needs models, teachers, comforters and cannot find them among his contemporaries.

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

The thought is merely a sign, as the word is merely a sign for the thought.

Original minds are not distinguished by being the first to see a new thing, but instead by seeing the old, familiar thing that is over-looked as something new.

No artist will tolerate the world for one second as it is.

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

Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And don't forget about your legs either! Lift up your legs as well, you good dancers, and better yet--stand also on your heads!

I need solitude, which is to say, recovery, return to my self, the breath of a free, light, playful air.

He who cannot command himself should obey. And many can command themselves, but much is still lacking before they can obey themselves.

Early in the morning, at break of day, in all the freshness and dawn of one's strength, to read a book -I call that vicious!

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

Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.