Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes
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No man ever wrote more eloquently and luminously [than Heraclitus].
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The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.
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Could one count such dilettantes and old spinsters as that mawkish apostle of virginity, Mainlander, as a genuine German? In the last analysis he probably was a Jew (all Jews become mawkish when they moralize).
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[Heraclitus' language] dispenses with lightness and artificial decoration, foremost out of disgust for humanity and out of [his own] defiant feeling.
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A belief, however necessary it may be for the preservation of a species, has nothing to do with truth. The falseness of a judgment is not for us necessarily an objection to a judgment. The question is to what extent it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species preserving, perhaps even species cultivating. To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.
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When one speaks of humanity, the idea is fundamental that this is something which separates and distinguishes man from nature. In reality, however, there is no such separation: "natural" qualities and those called truly "human" are inseparably grown together. Man, in his highest and noblest capacities, is wholly nature and embodies its uncanny dual character. Those of his abilities which are terrifying and considered inhuman may even be the fertile soil out of which alone all humanity can grow in impulse, deed, and work.
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A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.
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As an artist one has no home in Europe except in Paris.
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Every society has a tendency to reduce it's opponents to caricatures.
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You say that I should be your teacher! See to it that I am your pinion and not your brake.
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In art the end does not sanctify the means: but sacred means employed here can sanctify the end.
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That God became man indicates only this: that man should not seek his salvation in eternity, but rather establish his heaven on earth.
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It is not conflict of opinions that has made history so violent but conflict of belief in opinions, that is to say conflict of convictions.
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Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of today - burning us.
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What we call truths are just those errors that we cannot give up.
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Crude men who feel themselves insulted tend to assess the degree of insult as high as possible, and talk about the offense in greatly exaggerated language, only so they can revel to their heart's content in the aroused feelings of hatred and revenge.
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I am opposed to socialism because it dreams ingenuously of good, truth, beauty, and equal rights.
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The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.
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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.
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Let them like the Tibetans, chew the cud of their "om mane padme hum" innumerable times, or, as in Benares, count the name of the God Ram-Ram-Ram (etc. with or without charm) on their fingers; or honour Vishnu with his thousand names of invocation, Allah with his ninety-nine; or they may make use of the prayer-wheels and the rosary: the main thing is that they are settled down for a time at this work and are tolerable to look at. This kind of prayer has been invented for the benefit of the pious who have thought and elevations of their own.
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One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.
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The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us.
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Every virtue has its privilege: for example, that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned.
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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.