Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes
-
We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.
-
If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs do for the sake of our church : it is a sacrifice to our longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power.
-
The unselective knowledge drive resembles the indiscriminate sexual drive--signs of vulgarity!
-
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.
-
The grand style follows suit with all great passion. It disdains to please, it forgets to persuade. It commands. It wills.
-
It is only those who know how to feel that "this is not good" who devise improvements.
-
There is nothing that has caused me to meditate more on Plato's secrecy and sphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit fait that under the pillow of his death-bed there was found no 'Bible,' nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonic - but a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato have endured life - a Greek life which he repudiated - without an Aristophanes!
-
In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross.
-
Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
-
Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.
-
The criminal is quite frequently not equal to his deed: he belittles and slanders it.
-
However closely people are attached to one another, their mutual horizon nonetheless includes all four compass directions, and nowand again they notice it.
-
Belief in form, but disbelief in content - that's what makes an aphorism charming.
-
Science rushes headlong, without selectivity, without "taste," at whatever is knowable, in the blind desire to know all at any cost.
-
Not doubt, certainty is what drives one insane.
-
...one can speak with the utmost clearness, and yet not be heard by anyone.
-
I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!
-
The real world is much smaller than the imaginary.
-
"Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. But the greater thing - in which thou art unwilling to believe - is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it.
-
Consider the cattle, grazing as they pass you by. They do not know what is meant by yesterday or today, they leap about, eat, rest, digest, leap about again, and so from morn till night and from day to day, fettered to the moment and its pleasure or displeasure, and thus neither melancholy nor bored. [...] A human being may well ask an animal: 'Why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze at me?' The animal would like to answer, and say, 'The reason is I always forget what I was going to say' - but then he forgot this answer too, and stayed silent.
-
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.
-
Though the favourites of the Gods die young, they also live eternally in the company of Gods.
-
'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?
-
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?