Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

But he who is hated by the people, as the wolf by the dogs - is the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer, the dweller in the woods.

When, however, you have an enemy, then do not requite him good for evil: for that would shame him. Instead, prove that he did some good for you. And rather be angry than put to shame! And when you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather curse a little also! And if you are done a great injustice, then quickly add five small ones. Hideous to behold is he who is obsessed with an injustice.

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

Those people have no real interest in a science who only begin to get excited about it when they themselves have made discoveries in it.

Men use a new lesson or experience later on as a ploughshare or perhaps also as a weapon; women at once make it into an ornament.

There are expressions and bulls-eyes of the spirit, there are epigrams, a little handful of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society is suddenly crystallized.

Posthumous men-myself, for example-are not as well understood as timely ones, but we are listened to better. More precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority.

There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated

When thou goest to woman, take thy whip.

Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster.

What is the greatest thing ye can experience? It is the hour of great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becometh loathsome unto you, and so also your reason and virtue.

Few are made for independence, it is the privilege of the strong.

Christianity is called the religion of pity.

A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, betrays its sediment: its dregs come up.

Thinking has to be learned in the way dancing has to be learned.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

Man is something that shall be overcome.... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.

Man is the cruelest animal.

Socrates condemned art because he preferred philosophy and only after much internal struggle did Plato accept this judgment.

Nothing seems to me to be rarer today then genuine hypocrisy. I greatly suspect that this plant finds the mild atmosphere of our culture unendurable. Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief one already has.

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

If God had wanted to become an object of love, he would first of all have had to forgo judging and justice : a judge, and even a gracious judge, is no object of love.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

I am Zarathustra the Godless: where shall I find my equal? All those who give themselves their own will and renounce all submission, they are my equals.

Preparatory human beings. - I welcome all signs that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin, which will restore honour to courage above all! For this age shall prepare the way for one yet higher, and it shall gather the strength that this higher age will require some day - the age that will carry heroism into the search for knowledge and that will wage wars for the sake of ideas and their consequences.

Every living body continuously eliminates feces, it rejects what is not serviceable to the assimilating organism: what man despises, what arouses his disgust, what he calls evil, are excrements.

Madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups.

... art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live.

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

What was a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.

A married philosopher is a comic character.

The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!

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

The criminal is quite frequently not equal to his deed: he belittles and slanders it.

Ye shall only have foes to be hated; but not foes to be despised: ye must be proud of your foes.

Ten truths must you find during the day; otherwise will you seek truth during the night, and your soul will have been hungry.

Whether in conversation we generally agree or disagree with others is largely a matter of habit: the one tendency makes as much sense as the other.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

But it is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeketh to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark and deep — into the evil.

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.

Supposing truth is a woman -- what then?

Along the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

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.

Assuming that he believes at all, the everyday Christian is a pitiful figure, a man who really cannot count up to three, and who besides, precisely because of his mental incompetence, would not deserve such a punishment as Christianity promises him.

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! Distrust all those who talk much of their justice!

Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic, religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire, passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits of illogical thinking, this world has gradually become so marvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it has acquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the human intellect that has made appearances appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions into things.

They call you heartless; but you have a heart and I love you for being ashamed to show it.