Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes
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When a nation is on the downward path, when it feels its belief in its own future, its hope of freedom slipping from it, when it begins to see submission as a first necessity and the virtues of submission as measures of self-preservation, then it must overhaul its God.
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Even today a crude sort of persecution is all that is required to create an honorable name for any sect, no matter how indifferent in itself.
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A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch. Hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which always remains highly valued, as salt does, and never becomes stupid like salt.
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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.
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One must give value to their existence by behaving as if ones very existence were a work of art.
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What is it that endowed things with meaning, value, significance? The creating heart, which desired, and, out of its desire, created. It created joy and woe. It wanted to satiate itself with woe. We must take all the suffering that has been endured by men and animals upon ourselves and affirm it, and possess a goal in which it acquires reason.
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Lying very still and thinking very little is the most inexpensive medicine for all the sicknesses of the soul, and when administered with good intentions it grows more and more pleasant with each passing hour.
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Wie finden wir uns selbst wieder? Wie kann sich der Mensch kennen? Er ist eine dunkle und verhüllte Sache; und wenn der Hase sieben Häute hat, so kann der Mensch sich sieben mal siebzig abziehn und wird noch nicht sagen können: »das bist du nun wirklich, das ist nicht mehr Schale«.
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If it is true to say of the lazy that they kill time, then it is greatly to be feared that an era which sees its salvation in public opinion, this is to say private laziness, is a time that really will be killed: I mean that it will be struck out of the history of the true liberation of life. How reluctant later generations will be to have anything to do with the relics of an era ruled, not by living men, but by pseudo-men dominated by public opinion.
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Behold! I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it from me. I wish to spread it and bestow it, until the wise have once more become joyous in their folly, and the poor happy in their riches.
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Our salvation lies not in knowing, but in creating!
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One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is the whole - there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, condemn the whole...But nothing exists apart from the whole!
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The sensible author writes for no other posterity than his own--that is, for his age--so as to be able even then to take pleasurein himself.
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He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.
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Writers ought to be regarded as wrongdoers who deserve to be acquitted or pardoned only in the rarest cases: that would be a way to keep books from getting out of hand.
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Someone said: "I have been prejudiced against myself from my earliest childhood: hence I find some truth in all blame and some stupidity in all praise. I generally estimate praise too poorly and blame too highly.
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One lives for the day, one lives very fast, one lives very irresponsibly: precisely this is called "freedom."
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From whatever you wish to know and measure you must take your leave, at least for a time. Only when you have left the town can yousee how high its towers rise above the houses.
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Freedom is the will to be responsible for ourselves.
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Die Länge des Tages. - Wenn man viel hineinzustecken hat, so hat ein Tag hundert Taschen.
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A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, betrays its sediment: its dregs come up.
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And so, onwards... along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence.. however you may be, be your own source of experience. Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.
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You say 'I' and you are proud of this word. But greater than this- although you will not believe in it - is your body and its great intelligence, which does not say 'I' but performs 'I'.
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The states in which we infuse a transfiguration and a fullness into things and poetize about them until they reflect back our fullness and joy in life...three elements principally: sexuality, intoxication and cruelty - all belonging to the oldest festal joys.