Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

We, however, want to become those we are--human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense--while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics--our honesty!

No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year -- ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge -- and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery.

truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions, metaphors that have become worn-out and deprived of their sensuous force, coins that have lost their imprint and are now no longer seen as coins but as metal.

What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness

A little wisdom is indeed possible; but this blessed security have I found in all things, that they prefer--to DANCE on the feet of chance.

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

Can an ass be tragic?--To perish under a burden that one can neither bear nor cast off? The case of the philosopher.

For some natures, changing their opinions is just as much a requirement of cleanliness as changing their clothes: for others, however, it is merely a requirement of vanity.

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

...one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by anyone.

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.

Everything in woman hath a solution. It is called pregnancy.

Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.

Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.

Man alone resists the direction of gravitation: he constantly wants to fall--upwards.

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

Whoever possesses the will to suffering within himself has a different attitude towards cruelty: he does not regard it as inherently harmful and bad.

Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

In order for once to get a glimpse of our European morality from a distance, in order to compare it with other earlier or future moralities, one must do as the traveller who wants to know the height of the towers of a city: he leaves the city.

Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.

What was formerly merely sickly now becomes indecent : it is indecent to be a Christian today.

Verily, a polluted stream is man. One must actually be a sea to take in a polluted stream without becoming impure. Behold, I teach you the superman: he is the this sea, in him can your great contempt go under.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

All isolation is wrong so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd.

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.

Man, however, is the most courageous animal: thereby has he overcome every animal. With sound of triumph has he overcome every pain; human pain, however, is the sorest pain.

Everything that is ponderous, vicious and pompously clumsy, all long-winded and wearying kinds of style, are developed in great variety among Germans.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.)

I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brilliance; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver's glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift-giving virtue is the highest virtue.

From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.

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

Christians call it faith ... I call it the herd.

Those with very loud voices in their throats are nearly incapable of thinking subtle thoughts.

To regard states of distress in general as an objection, as something which must be abolished is the greatest nonsense on earth; having the most disastrous consequences, fatally stupid- almost as stupid as a wish to abolish bad weather - out of pity for the poor.

Mankind must work continually to produce individual great human beings - this and nothing else is the task... for the question is this : How can your life, the individual life, retain the highest value, the deepest significance? Only by living for the good of the rarest and most valuable specimens.

There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell.

Reason" in language - oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

It is not the strengths, but the durations of great sentiments that make great men.

Once we have found ourselves, we must understand how from time to time to lose--and then to find--ourselves once again: assuming,that is, that we are thinkers. For a thinker it is a drawback to be bound to a single person all the time.

We cannot even reproduce our thoughts entirely in words.

It is terrible to die of thirst in the ocean. Do you have to salt your truth so heavily that it does not even-quench thirst any more?

Many people, especially women, never experience boredom because they have never learned to work properly.

i have never pondered over questions that are not questions.