Quotes from Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.

Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.

A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

Man is something that shall be overcome. Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.

There is an innocence in admiration: it occurs in one who has not yet realized that they might one day be admired.

A thought comes when it will, not when I will.

The life of the enemy . Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive.

Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Success has always been a great liar

Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession.

no one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.

My formula for happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal.

We would not let ourselves be burned to death for our opinions: we are not sure enough of them for that.

It is a terrible thought, to contemplate that an immense number of mediocre thinkers are occupied with really influential matters.

We laugh at a man who, stepping out of his room at the very minute when the sun is rising, says, "It is my will that the sun shall rise"; or at him who, unable to stop a wheel, says, "I wish it to roll"; or, again, at him who, thrown in a wrestling match, says, "Here I lie, but here I wish to lie." But, joking apart, do we not act like one of these three persons whenever we use the expression "I wish"?

ridendo dicere severum . (tr. Through what is laughable say what is somber.)

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

Aphorisms should be peaks – and those who are addressed, tall and lofty. The air thin and pure, danger near, and the spirit full of gay sarcasm: these go well together.

Wir haben den Begriff Zweck erfunden: in der Realität fehlt der Zweck... Man ist nothwendig, man ist ein Stück Verhängniss, man gehört zum Ganzen, man ist im Ganzen, - es giebt Nichts, was unser Sein richten, messen, vergleichen, verurtheilen könnte, denn das hiesse das Ganze richten, messen, vergleichen, verurtheilen... Aber es giebt Nichts ausser dem Ganzen!

We are so fond of being out among Nature, because it has no opinions about us.