Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

Way to equality.—A few hours of mountain climbing turn a villain and a saint into two rather equal creatures. Exhaustion is the shortest way to equality and fraternity—and liberty is added eventually by sleep. 297

but the higher you climb, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. And he who flies is hated most of all.

At present I still possess the same affability towards everybody, I am even full of consideration for the lowliest of people: in all this there is not a grain of arrogance or of secret contempt. He whom I despise soon guesses that he is despised by me: my mere existence is enough to rouse indignation in all those who have bad blood in their veins.

The errors of great men are more valuable than the truths of lesser men.

For today the petty people have become lord and master: they all preach submission and acquiescence and prudence and diligence and consideration and the long et cetera of petty virtues.

Nevertheless, I am versed in the use of two weapons: saber and cannon — and, perhaps, one other . . .

at the age of thirty, when it comes to high culture, one is a beginner, a child.—

To invent fables about a world other than this one has no meaning at all, unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case, we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of another, a better life.

In the end one has to do everything oneself in order to know a few things oneself: that is, one has a lot to do. But a curiosity of my type remains after all the most agreeable of all vices—sorry, I meant to say: the love of truth has its reward in heaven and even on earth.—

Aside from a few philosophers, men have always placed pity rather low in the hierarchy of moral feelings—and rightly so.

What is great in the human is that it is a bridge and not a goal: what can be loved in the human is that it is a going-over and a going-under.

We should not deck out and embellish Christianity: it has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man, it has put all the deepest instincts of this type under its ban, it has developed its concept of evil, of the Evil One himself, out of these instincts — the strong man as the typical reprobate, the "outcast among men.

You say to me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But wherefore would you have in the morning your pride and in the evening your resignation?

Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truth presented itself before us—or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem?

What is the seal of liberation?— No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.

If I wished to shake this tree with my hands, I should not be able to do so. But the wind, which we do not see, troubles and bends it as it lists. We are worst bent and troubled by invisible hands.

Life is hard to bear: but do not pretend to be so sensitive! We are all of us pretty sturdy asses and she-asses.

Quiero aprender cada vez mejor a ver lo necesario de las cosas como lo bello; así, seré de los que vuelven bellas las cosas. ¡Amor fati: que ese sea en adelante mi amor! No quiero librar guerra a lo feo. No quiero acusar, no quiero ni siquiera acusar a los acusadores. ¡Apartar la mirada, que sea ésta mi única negación! Y, en definitiva, y en grande: ¡quiero ser, un día, uno que sólo dice sí!

What does your conscience say? — 'You shall become the person you are.

The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.

He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd. The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.

When we look out for the Barbarian, we look in the depths. But there is another type of Barbarian, who comes from the heights.

Die Sinnlichkeit übereilt oft das Wachsthum der Liebe, so dass die Wurzel schwach bleibt und leicht auszureissen ist.

For the highest man shall also be the highest lord on earth. There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny, than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men. Then everything becomes false and distorted and monstrous. And when they are even the last men, and more beast than man, then rises and rises the populace in honour, and at last says even the populace-virtue: 'Behold, I alone am virtue!