Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

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

Friedrich Nietzsche
And I offer you this parable: Not a few who sought to cast out their devil entered into the swine themselves.

Friedrich Nietzsche
It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

Friedrich Nietzsche
It is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the individual.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.

Friedrich Nietzsche
He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he really knows.

Friedrich Nietzsche
If you have hitherto believed that life was one of the highest value and now see yourselves disappointed, do you at once have to reduce it to the lowest possible price?

Friedrich Nietzsche
What is originality? To see something that has no name as yet and hence cannot be mentioned although it stares us all in the face. The way men usually are, it takes a name to make something visible for them.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture.

Friedrich Nietzsche
When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Something might be true while being harmful and dangerous in the highest degree. Indeed, it might be a basic characteristic of existence that those who know it completely would perish, in which case the strength of a spirit should be measured according to how much of the 'truth' one could still barely endure- or to put it more clearly, to what degree one would require it to be thinned down, shrouded, sweetened, blunted, falsified.

Friedrich Nietzsche
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book — what everyone else does not say in a whole book.

Friedrich Nietzsche
It is only because man believes himself to be free, not because he is free, that he experiences remorse and pricks of conscience.

Friedrich Nietzsche
To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.

Friedrich Nietzsche
It was Christianity which first painted the devil on the worlds walls; It was Christianity which first brought sin into the world. Belief in the cure which it offered has now been shaken to it's deepest roots; but belief in the sickness which it taught and propagated continues to exists.

Friedrich Nietzsche
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.

Friedrich Nietzsche
They would have to sing better songs for me to learn to have faith in their Redeemer; and his disciples would have to look more redeemed!

Friedrich Nietzsche
If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more frequent.

Friedrich Nietzsche
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in vain.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Error has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not have been capable of it.

Friedrich Nietzsche
What is now decisive against Christianity is our taste, no longer our reasons.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Pity is the most pleasant feeling in those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great conquests: the easy prey - and that is what every sufferer is - is for them an enchanting thing.

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

Friedrich Nietzsche
For our self respect depends upon our ability to make requital, for good or for evil.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound. It is so timid and dislikes going into the water.

Friedrich Nietzsche
He who has a "Why?" in life can tolerate almost any "How?"

Friedrich Nietzsche