Sayings of Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was a strange philosopher who could write great aphorisms. I don’t necessarity agree with all of these quotes. They’re thought provoking, at least:

A man who has declared that another is an idiot and a bad companion, is angry when the latter eventually proves himself to be otherwise.

A man's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.

After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave - a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. -And we- we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.

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.

And be on they guard against the good and the just! They would fain crucify those who devise their own virtue - they hate the lonesome ones.

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.

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.

Courageous people are persuaded to a course of action by representing it as more dangerous than it really is.

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

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 laughs best today, will also laugh 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.

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 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.

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.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Many a man's talent appears less that it is, because he has always set himself too heavy tasks.

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.

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.

One is in greatest danger of being run over when one has just got out of the way of a carriage.

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.

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.

Plato was a bore.

Poets treat their experiences shamelessly: they exploit them.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

The best author will be he who is ashamed to become one.

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 doer alone learneth.

The flame is not so bright to itself as to those whom it illuminates, so also the wise man.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

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 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.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

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.

We have reached mastery when we neither mistake nor hesitate in the achievement.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

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 has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.

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.

Woman was God's second mistake.