Friedrich Nietzsche quotes
German philosopher who challenged received morality and proclaimed the death of God. Asked what it would take to affirm life unconditionally — eternal recurrence.
33 passages across 17 themes. More on Friedrich Nietzsche.
On truth
“Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.”
“Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.”
“May I really say it! All truths are bloody truths to me—take a look at my previous writings.”
“This is the antinomy: Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence.”
On action
“Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying there are only facts, I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.”
“Mastery over nature, the Idée fixe of the 20th century, is Brahmanism, Indo-German.”
“The artist — as the one who compels motion through art media toward art — cannot be simultaneously the absorptive instrument of art's own activity.”
“Mathematics would certainly have not come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no actual circle, no absolute magnitude.”
On self-mastery
“Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.”
“A man as he ought to be: that sounds to us as insipid as a tree as it ought to be.”
“No more fiction for us: we calculate; but that we may calculate, we had to make fiction first.”
“Morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions ... I abhore Christianity with a deadly hatred.”
On presence
“All that had thus far counted as limit, as measuring determination, proved itself here but artificial”
“There is nothing to life that has value, except the degree of power—assuming that life itself is the will to power.”
“The stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the latter cannot assert its degree of independence — here there is no mercy, no forbearance, even less a respect for laws.”
“The quest for philosophical beginnings is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings we find only the crude, the unformed, the empty and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels.”
On authenticity
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
“Become who you are.”
“The rights a man arrogates to himself are related to the duties he imposes on himself, to the tasks to which he feels equal. The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men.”
On wisdom
“I now myself live, in every detail, striving for wisdom, while I formerly merely worshipped and idolized the wise.”
“Only fool! Only poet! / Merely speaking colorfully, / From fools' masks shouting colorfully, / Climbing about on deceptive word-bridges, / On misleading rainbows, / Between false heavens / Rambling, lurking —Only fool! Only poet!”
On love
“My task is to throw a light on that which we must always love and revere, of which no subsequent knowledge can rob us: man in his greatness.”
“Rather than cope with the unbearable loneliness of their condition men will continue to seek their shattered God, and for His sake they will love the very serpents that dwell among His ruins.”
On purpose
“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”
On resilience
“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
On character
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.”
On beauty
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
On freedom
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe.”
On creation
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
On reflection
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
On death
“Best is not to be ... second-best is to die quickly”
On solitude
“The only thing of interest in a refuted system is the personal element. It alone is what is forever irrefutable.”
On change
“The concept of greatness is changeable, in the realm of morality as well as in that of esthetics. And so philosophy starts by legislating greatness.”