Explore popular quotes and sayings by a German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Last updated on November 21, 2024.
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic and philologist whose work has exerted a profound influence on modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 45, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after many strokes and pneumonia.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
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.
It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.
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.
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.
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. 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?
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.
The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
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.
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Success has always been a great liar.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
The future influences the present just as much as the past.
For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.
Woman was God's second mistake.
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
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.
Fear is the mother of morality.
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.
The doer alone learneth.
One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.
Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
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.
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.