Friedrich Nietzsche quotes

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

• 24
• purpose

One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

• 21
• emotions

We forget our guilt when we have confessed it to another, but the other does not usually forget it.

• 21
• guilt

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

• 20
• freedom

He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.

• 20
• reason

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

• 20
• christianity

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

• 18
• suicide

We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once.

• 18
• dance

Without music, life would be a mistake.

• 17
• music

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

• 17
• art

Only sick music makes money today.

• 16
• music

There are no facts, only interpretations.

• 16
• facts

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

• 16
• deceptionlying

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a new heaven first found the power thereto in his own hell.

• 16
• paradise

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

• 15
• death

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

• 14
• adversity

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

• 13
• absurdity

Distrust everyone in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

• 13
• punishment

Fear is the mother of morality.

• 13
• fear

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.

• 13
• marriage

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

• 12
• future

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

• 12
• child

Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.

• 12
• humor

The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.

• 12
• truth

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.

• 12
• memory

The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.

• 12
• danger

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

• 11
• profanity

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

• 11
• able

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

• 11
• fanaticism

Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art.

• 10
• humanity

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

• 10
• men

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.

• 10
• wisdom

Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.

• 10
• love

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

• 9
• believe

Instinct. When the house burns one forgets even lunch. Yes, but one eats it later in the ashes.

• 9
• instinct

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

• 9
• hope

To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.

• 9
• excellence

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.

• 9
• deceptionlying

He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life.

• 9
• enemy

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

• 9
• ambition

The end of a melody is not its goal: but nonetheless, had the melody not reached its end it would not have reached its goal either. A parable.

• 8
• acceptance

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

• 8
• fanaticism

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.

• 8
• absurdity

The doer alone learneth.

• 8
• alone

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

• 8
• facts

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

• 8
• religion

Most of the time in married life is taken up by talk.

• 7
• speeches

In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross.

• 7
• christian

If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.

• 7
• life

So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

• 7
• praise

The kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart --not something that comes upon the earth or after death.

• 6
• comes

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

• 6
• humility

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

• 6
• men

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.

• 6
• called

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

• 5
• mistakes

Success has always been a great liar.

• 5
• success

If one uses one's intellect to become master over the unlimited emotions, it may produce a sorry and diversionary effect upon the intellect.

• 5
• emotions

One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.

• 5
• death

He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser.

• 5
• self

Idleness is the parent of psychology.

• 5
• psychology

You gave him an opportunity of showing greatness of character and he did not seize it. He will never forgive you for that.

• 5
• resentment

We are franker towards others than towards ourselves.

• 5
• honesty

I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar.

• 5
• god

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

• 5
• deceptionlying

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

• 4
• anything

We do not place especial value on the possession of a virtue until we notice its total absence in our opponent.

• 4
• virtue

What is wanted

• 4
• individuality

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

• 4
• chosen

Mystical explanations are considered deep. The truth is that they are not even superficial.

• 4
• truth

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.

• 4
• thought

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

• 4
• forgiveness

Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.

• 4
• egoism

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

• 4
• activity

Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain.

• 4
• boredom

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

• 4
• reading

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

• 3
• wisdom

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

• 3
• wisdom

Has a woman who knew she was well-dressed ever caught a cold?

• 3
• praise

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

• 3
• suicide

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

• 3
• father

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I tell you: it is the good war that hallows every cause.

• 3
• reason

When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.

• 3
• time

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

• 3
• bad

If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

• 3
• abyss

First principle: one must need strength, otherwise one will never have it.

• 3
• strength

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.

• 3
• friends

Early in the morning, at break of day, in all the freshness and dawn of one's strength, to read a book --I call that vicious!

• 3
• reading

I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.

• 2
• believe

The doctrine of equality! There exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.

• 2
• equality

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

• 2
• evil

Man... cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.

• 2
• past

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.

• 2
• punishment

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.

• 2
• life

Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom. -- A theme for a great poet would be God's boredom on the seventh day of creation.

• 2
• boredom

The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.

• 2
• vanity

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.

• 2
• war

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

• 2
• laughter

The ascetic makes a necessity of virtue.

• 2
• poverty

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

• 2
• experience

A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

• 2
• actions

The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity.

• 2
• love

Woman was God's second mistake.

• 2
• god

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

• 2
• city

Christianity makes suffering contagious.

• 2
• christianity

All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting.

• 2
• style

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.

• 2
• abyss

The strongest knowledge (that of the total freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.

• 2
• freedom

How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life.

• 2
• age

Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected to hide!

• 2
• science

Beggars should be entirely abolished! Truly, it is annoying to give to them and annoying not to give to them.

• 2
• charity

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

• 2
• spirituality

These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.

• 1
• chastity

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

• 1
• charity

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

• 1
• women

A strong and secure man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds alike) just as he digests his meat, even when he has some bits to swallow.

• 1
• experience

What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to Power, and the power itself in man. What is bad? All that proceeds from weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is increasing--that resistance has been overcome. Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not virtue, but competence. The first principle of our humanism: The weak and the failures shall perish. They ought even to be helped to perish.

• 1
• goodness

O man! Take heed!What saith deep midnight's voice indeed?I slept my sleep--,From deepest dream I've woke, and plead: The world is deep, And deeper than the day could read.Deep is its woe--,Joy--deeper still than grief can be:Woe saith: Hence! Go!But joys all want eternity,Want deep, profound eternity!

• 1

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

• 1
• power

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.

• 1
• concentration

Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.

• 1
• laughter