Philosopher · German · 1844 – 1900 · 217 quotes
Women are considered deep - why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Philosopher · German · 1844 – 1900
The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.
Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.
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?
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.
There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.
When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!
When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.
There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.
Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.
