Excessive productivity can bring the most gifted man almost to madness.
"Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche" was a Germans/German classical philology/philologist, philosophy/philosopher, cultural critic, poetry/poet and composer. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.
If you enjoy these quotes, be sure to check out other famous philosophers! More Friedrich Nietzsche on Wikipedia.What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.
Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
In a friend one should have ones best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him.
When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
What a time experiences as evil, is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good--the atavism of a more ancient ideal.
And we should consider everyday 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.
Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.
Only sick music makes money today.
If the belief [in Christianity] did not make us happy, it would not be believed: how little it must then be worth!
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.
'Every man has his price.' This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
The habit of intellectual principles without reasons is called faith.
Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?
One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do…?
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.
He who makes no secret of himself, enrages.
What ever lives obeys . . . he who cannot obey himself is commanded.
Whis is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's?
For a significant manwoman, the one thought he values greatly, to the laughter and scorn of insignificant men, is a key to hidden treasure chambers; for those others, it is nothing but a piece of old iron.
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the world's religions.
For others do I wait... for higher ones, stronger ones, more triumphant ones, merrier ones, for such as are built squarely in body and soul: laughing lions must come.
I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
Plato is boring.
Improvements are invented only by those who can feel that something is not good.
You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.
Woman was God's second mistake.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
It is difficult to live with people because it is so difficult to be silent. And not against him who is repugnant to us are we most unfair, but against him who is no concern of ours.
The quest for philosophy's beginning is idle, for everywhere in all beginnings we find only the crude, the unformed, the empty, and the ugly. What matters in all things is the higher levels.
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Disgust with dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves - from 'justifying' ourselves.
Some men are born posthumously.
Maturity consists in having rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.
However far man may extend himself with his knowledge, however objective he may appear to himself- -ultimately he reaps nothing but his own biography.
I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.
Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
I repeat that sin, man's self-violation par excellence, was invented purely inorder to make science, culture, and every elevation and ennobling of man impossible; the priest rules by the invention of sin.
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Thinking evil is making evil.
I am a law only for my kind, I am no law for all.
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
Man is the cruelest animal.
Not to see many things, not to hear them, not to let them approach one--first piece of ingenuity, first proof that one is no accident but a necessity.
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
At the bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique human being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
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.
To find everything profound - that is an inconvenient trait. It makes one strain one's eyes all the time, and in the end one finds more than one might have wished.
One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Christianity is called the religion of pity.
Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
He whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster!
For verily, my brothers, the spirit is a stomach.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth?
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Convictions are prisons.
They punish you for all your virtues. They forgive you entirely--your mistakes.
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing.
In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Memory says, I did that. Pride replies, I could not have done that. Eventually memory yields.
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology.
When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
All that is straight lies. All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.
Love is a state in which a man sees things most decidedly as they are not.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Man is more ape than many of the apes.
The 'highest' states of mind held up before mankind by christianity as of supreme value, are actually forms of convulsive epilepsy.
What does not kill me, makes me stronger.
"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that" -- says my pride, and remains adamant. At last -- memory yields.
When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.
Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
One should never know too precisely whom one has married.
The overman...Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. Aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment.
It is time, it is high time... Yes, but to do what?
THE DISAPPOINTED MAN SPEAKS.--I sought great human beings, I never found anything but the APES of their ideal.
For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously.
Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
We are always in our own company.
A profession is the backbone of life.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Convictions are the more dangerous enemy of truth than lies.
. . .the real world is much smaller than the imaginary.
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.
That everybody is allowed to learn to read spoileth in the long run not only writing but thinking.
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
Every extension of knowledge arises from making the conscious the unconscious.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
For men are not equal: thus speaks justice.
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.
Amor Fati – 'Love Your Fate', which is in fact your life.
I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.
Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the best even of their blunders.
Out of passions grow opinions, mental sloth lets these rigidify into convictions.
This world is the will to power - and nothing besides!
What we once did 'for the sake of God' we now do for the sake of money.
Morality is the greatest of all tools for leading mankind by the nose.
Everything that one thinks about a lot becomes problematic.
A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
We have no dreams at all or interesting ones. We should learn to be awake the same way - not at all or in an interesting manner.
He who has much to proclaim one day, stays silently much immersed within himself: he who has to kindle the lightning one day, must for a long time--be a cloud.
A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions!
One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.
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.
He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser.
Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Whatever does not destroy me makes me stronger.
And he whom you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.
The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
One must need to be strong, else one will never become strong.
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