Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

How can anyone become a thinker unless he spends at least a third of every day away from passions, people, and books?

Some people appear to be more meager in talent than they are, just because the tasks they set themselves are always too great.

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

Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed? Behold, I show you the Superman. He is this lightning, he is this madness.

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

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane.

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!

Some are made modest by great praise, others insolent.

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.

Let your love to life be love to your highest hope; and let your highest hope be the highest thought of life!

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

An important species of pleasure, and therewith the source of morality, arises out of habit.

Possessions are usually diminished by possession.

I love him whose soul is lavish, who wanteth no thanks and doth not give back: for he always bestoweth, and desireth not to keep for himself.

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 should not believe in a God who does not dance.

The world is a work of art that gives birth to itself.

Only individuals have a sense of responsibility.

Ten times must you laugh during the day, and be cheerful; otherwise your stomach, the father of affliction, will disturb you in the night.

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

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

Truth will have no gods before it.- The belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in which one has previously believed.

All words are prejudices.

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.

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss.

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

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

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

He who strays from the customary becomes a sacrifice to the extraordinary; he who keeps to the customary becomes its slave. He iscondemned to perish in either case.

I have never come across someone who could inspire more respect than the Greek philosophers.

Thou seekest disciples? Then thou seekest ciphers.

You shall become the person you are.

Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact.

There are the terrible ones who carry about in themselves the beast of prey, and have no choice except lusts or self-laceration. And even their lusts are self-laceration.

Faith means the will to avoid knowing what is true.

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

On the heights it is warmer than people in the valley suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile.

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

For let us not underestimate the Christian: the Christian, false to the point of innocence, is far above the ape-regarding Christians, a well known theory of descent becomes a mere compliment.

Righteousness exalteth a nation.

The State is the coldest of all cold monsters.

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

If a woman possesses manly virtues, she is to be run away from; and if she does not possess them, she runs away herself.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

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

What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!

A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.

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

Too long, the earth has been a madhouse!

Mastery.- We have reached mastery when we neither mistake nor hesitate in the achievement.