a casual stroll through the lunatic
asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
-------
a great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are
the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
-------
a letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude
surprises. one ought to reserve an hour a week for receiving letters
and afterwards take a bath.
-------
a pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a
person in love.
-------
a subject for a great poet would be god's boredom after the seventh
day of creation.
-------
a woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to
endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
-------
after coming into contact with a religious man i always feel i must
wash my hands.
-------
ah, women. they make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
-------
all credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come
only from the senses.
-------
all in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible;
it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it
strengthens the power of resistance.
-------
all of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.
-------
all sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for
the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of
value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
-------
all things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation
prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
-------
all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
-------
all truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?
-------
altered opinions do not alter a man's character (or do so very
little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the
constellation of his personality which with a different
constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and
unrecognizable.
-------
although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches
themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt
nevertheless was non-existent. it is thus with all guilt.
-------
an artist has no home in europe except in paris.
-------
and be on they guard against the good and the just! they would fain
curcify those who devise their own virtue - they hate the lonesome
ones.
-------
and if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into
you.
-------
and we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at
least once. and we should call every truth false which was not
accompanied by at least one laugh.
-------
arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to
us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is
offensive.
-------
art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in
truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed
alongside thereof for its conquest.
-------
art is the proper task of life.
-------
art raises its head where creeds relax.
-------
at bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being,
only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a
marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever
be put together a second time.
-------
at times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents
do not cease to be insipid.
-------
believe me! the secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the
greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
-------
blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their
blunders.
-------
character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than
by those one has had.
-------
christianity gave eros poison to drink; he did not die of it but
degenerated into vice.
-------
convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
-------
courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what wisdom
wants us to be. wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.
-------
distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
-------
does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired
by the smell of carrion?
-------
egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.
-------
enduring habits i hate... yes, at the very bottom of my soul i feel
grateful to all my misery and bouts of sickness and everything about
me that is imperfect, because this sort of thing leaves me with a
hundred backdoors through which i can escape from enduring habits.
-------
'evil men have no songs.' how is it that the russians have songs?
-------
existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
-------
experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. we must
not study ourselves while having an experience.
-------
extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by
contrary extreme positions.
-------
faith: not wanting to know what is true.
-------
fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than
listen to reasons.
-------
fear is the mother of morality.
-------
for art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a
certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
-------
for the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
-------
god is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.
-------
great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if
a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
-------
he that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
-------
he who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
-------
he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore
ourselves?
-------
he who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.
-------
he who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
-------
he who laughs best today, will also laughs last.
-------
he who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk
and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
-------
hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the
torments of man.
-------
i assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture
it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
-------
i cannot believe in a god who wants to be praised all the time.
-------
i do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be
than a good dancer. for the dance is his ideal, also his fine art,
finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his "divine service."
-------
i love those who do not know how to live for today.
-------
i wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!
-------
i would believe only in a god that knows how to dance.
-------
idleness is the parent of psychology.
-------
if a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and
if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
-------
if there is something to pardon in everything, there is also
something to condemn.
-------
if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
-------
in christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with
reality at any point.
-------
in every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
-------
in heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
-------
in individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations
and epochs, it is the rule.
-------
in large states public education will always be mediocre, for the
same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
-------
in music the passions enjoy themselves.
-------
in the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees
everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and
loathing seizes him.
-------
insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties,
nations and epochs, it is the rule.
-------
is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
-------
is man one of god's blunders? or is god one of man's blunders?
-------
it is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets
through many a bad night.
-------
it is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering
my reasons for them!
-------
it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole
book.
-------
it is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes
unhappy marriages.
-------
it says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few
worms.
-------
judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in
the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms,
they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such
judgments are stupidities.
-------
let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. the
living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
-------
love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
-------
love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for
their mother.
-------
madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations,
and ages it is the rule.
-------
many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it
too good.
-------
many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in
pursuit of the goal.
-------
morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
-------
necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.
-------
no one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
-------
not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.
-------
not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of
men. let them have everything - health, food, a place to live,
entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for
the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
-------
not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the
enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
-------
nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason
and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
-------
nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all
aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. let us immediately
add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of
aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
-------
of all that is written, i love only what a person has written with
his own blood.
-------
on the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you
will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your
powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
-------
once spirit was god, then it became man, and now it is even becoming
mob.
-------
one has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times
while one is still alive.
-------
one may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it
tells the truth.
-------
one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a
dancing star.
-------
one often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really
the tone in which it was conveyed.
-------
one should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live
proudly.
-------
only sick music makes money today.
-------
our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. we are
perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and
honey gatherers of the mind.
-------
out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words
directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning
they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and
gray. woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil
of the plants that grow in him.
-------
people who have given us their complete confidence believe that they
have a right to ours. the inference is false, a gift confers no
rights.
-------
perhaps i know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers
so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
-------
perhaps i know why it is man alone who laughs: he alone suffers so
deeply that he had to invent laughter.
-------
plato was a bore.
-------
precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a
breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best
happiness.
-------
shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.
-------
sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.
-------
success has always been a great liar.
-------
talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
-------
that which does not kill us makes us stronger.
-------
the "kingdom of heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something
that comes "upon the earth" or "after death."
-------
the aphorism in which i am the first master among germans, are the
forms of "eternity"; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what
everyone else says in a book - what everyone else does not say in a
book.
-------
the best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
-------
the christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the
world ugly and bad.
-------
the desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy,
envy, ambition. if one is something one really does not need to make
anything --and one nonetheless does very much. there exists above
the "productive" man a yet higher species.
-------
the doer alone learneth.
-------
the essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
-------
the future influences the present just as much as the past.
-------
the growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill
temper.
-------
the individual has always had to struggle to keep from being
overwhelmed by the tribe. if you try it, you will be lonely often,
and sometimes frightened. but no price is too high to pay for the
privilege of owning yourself.
-------
the irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence,
rather a condition of it.
-------
the lie is a condition of life.
-------
the man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but
also to hate his friends.
-------
the most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to
others is relatively an exception.
-------
the most spiritual human beings, assuming they are the most
courageous, also experience by far the most painful tragedies: but
it is precisely for this reason that they honor life, because it
brings against them its most formidable weapons.
-------
the newspaper reader says: this party will ruin itself if it makes
errors like this. my higher politics says: a party which makes
errors like this is already finished - it is no longer secure in its
instincts.
-------
the press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises
whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.
-------
the surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in
higher esteem those who think alike than those who think
differently.
-------
the true man wants two things: danger and play. for that reason he
wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
-------
the word "christianity" is already a misunderstanding - in reality
there has been only one christian, and he died on the cross.
-------
there are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
-------
there are no facts, only interpretations.
-------
there cannot be a god because if there were one, i could not believe
that i was not he.
-------
there is always some madness in love. but there is also always some
reason in madness.
-------
there is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects
the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. we
humans are - more humane.
-------
there is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
-------
this is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and
keep modest as a giver.
-------
this is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.
-------
this secret spoke life herself unto me: "behold," said she, "i am
that which must ever surpass itself."
-------
thoughts are the shadows of our sensations - always darker, emptier,
simpler than these.
-------
to die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. death
of one's own free choice, death at the proper time, with a clear
head and with joyfulness, consummated in the midst of children and
witnesses: so that an actual leave-taking is possible while he who
is leaving is still there.
-------
to exercise power costs effort and demands courage. that is why so
many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled -
because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too
cowardly to exercise it. the virtues which cloak these faults are
called patience and forbearance.
-------
to forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
-------
"to give style" to one's character - a great and rare art! he
exercises it who surveys all that his nature presents in strength
and weakness and then moulds it to an artistic plan until everything
appears as art and reason, and even the weaknesses delight the eye.
-------
to use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of
understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of
inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in
common.
-------
two great european narcotics, alcohol and christianity.
-------
undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than
undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power
of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than
by being unjustly underestimated.
-------
war has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has
grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in
the wounds one receives.
-------
we have art in order not to die of the truth.
-------
we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are
used to loving.
-------
we must be physicists in order to be creative since so far codes of
values and ideals have been constructed in ignorance of physics or
even in contradiction to physics.
-------
we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at
least once. and we should call every truth false which was not
accompanied by at least one laugh.
-------
what does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
-------
what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
-------
what is good? all that heightens the feeling of power, the will to
power, power itself in man.
-------
what really raises one's indignation against suffering is not
suffering intrinsically, but the senselessness of suffering.
-------
what someone is, begins to be revealed when his talent abates, when
he stops showing us what he can do.
-------
what then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? they are the
irrefutable errors of mankind.
-------
when a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and
gets another one.
-------
when marrying, ask yourself this question: do you believe that you
will be able to converse well with this person into your old age?
everything else in marriage is transitory.
-------
when one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing
possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
-------
when one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred
pockets.
-------
when one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes
that in the process one has learned something that one really needed
to know in the worst way - before one began.
-------
when one has not had a good father, one must create one.
-------
when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
-------
whenever i climb i am followed by a dog called 'ego'.
-------
whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn
him into a monster. and if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss
will gaze back into you.
-------
whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does
not become a monster. and if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the
abyss will gaze back into you.
-------
wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
-------
without music, life would be a mistake.
-------
woman was god's second mistake.
-------
women are considered deep - why? because one can never discover any
bottom to them. women are not even shallow.
-------
women can form a friendship with a man very well; but to preserve it
- to that end a slight physical antipathy must probably help.
-------
you have your way. i have my way. as for the right way, the correct
way, and the only way, it does not exist.
-------
you must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
-------
friedrich nietzsche
"god is dead"
nietzsche
"nietzsche is dead"
god |
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