Friedrich Nietzsche / 1844–1900 / Röcken, Province of Saxony, Kingdom of Prussia (now Germany) / Classicist, Philosopher, Author
Abyss
He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil] (1886).
Art
Art is the supreme task and the truly metaphysical activity in this life.
Die Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] (1872).
Thus the man who is responsive to artistic stimuli reacts to the reality of dreams as does the philosopher to the reality of existence; he observes closely, and he enjoys his observation: for it is out of these images that he interprets life, out of these processes that he trains himself for life.
Die Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] (1872).
Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science] (1882).
Boredom
Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.
Der Antichrist [The Anti-Christ] (1888).
Conscience
What does your conscience say?—”You shall become the person you are.”
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science] (1882).
Education
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.
Morgenröte [Daybreak] (1881).
Equality
The doctrine of equality! … But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice … “Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal”—that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, “never make the unequal equal.”
Götzen-Dämmerung [Twilight of the Idols] (1888).
Experience
What does not kill me, makes me stronger.
Götzen-Dämmerung [Twilight of the Idols] (1888).
Facts
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Tageücher [Notebooks]; selections first published posthumously in 1901; numerous subsequent editions.
Freedom
Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.
Menschliches, allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human] (1878).
God
Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? . . .
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science] (1882).
Haste
Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.
“Schopenhauer als Erzieher” [Schopenhauer as Educator], collected in Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Untimely Meditations] (1873).
Humanity
Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing.
“Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne” [On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense], composed in 1873; first published in 1896.
Man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king.
“Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne” [On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense], composed in 1873; first published in 1896.
Life
No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.
“Schopenhauer als Erzieher” [Schopenhauer as Educator], collected in Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Untimely Meditations] (1873).
For believe me!—the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously!
Die fröhliche Wissenschaft [The Gay Science] (1882).
He who has a Why? in life can tolerate almost any How?
Götzen-Dämmerung [Twilight of the Idols] (1888).
Motivation
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear
Menschliches, allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human] (1878).
Music
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Götzen-Dämmerung [Twilight of the Idols] (1888).
Philosophy
. . . philosophy offers an asylum to a man into which no tyranny can force it way, the inward cave, the labyrinth of the heart.
“Schopenhauer als Erzieher” [Schopenhauer as Educator], collected in Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen [Untimely Meditations] (1873).
Reality
We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things—metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.
“Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne” [On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense], composed in 1873; first published in 1896.
Reputation
Some are born posthumously.
Der Antichrist [The Anti-Christ] (1888).
One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
Ecce Homo [Ecce Homo] (1888).
I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous—a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.
Ecce Homo [Ecce Homo] (1888).
Socrates
We cannot help but see Socrates as the turning-point, the vortex of world history.
Die Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] (1872).
State
Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.
Also Sprach Zarathustra [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] (1883).
Truth
Lessing, the most honest of theoretical men, dared to say that he took greater delight in the quest for truth than in the truth itself.
Die Geburt der Tragödie [The Birth of Tragedy] (1872).
What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding.
“Über Wahrheit und Lüge im aussermoralischen Sinne” [On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense], composed in 1873; first published in 1896.
In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow.
Menschliches, allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human] (1878).
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Menschliches, allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human] (1878).
It is not enough to prove something, one has also to seduce or elevate people to it.
Morgenröte [Daybreak] (1881).
Wit
A witticism is an epigram on the death of a feeling.
Menschliches, allzumenschliches [Human, All Too Human] (1878).