Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

Terribleness is part of greatness: let us not deceive ourselves.

That which intoxicates, the sensually ecstatic, the sudden surprise, the urge to be profoundly stirred at any price -- dreadful tendencies!

Sharp and mild, dull and keen, well known and strange, dirty and clean, where both the fool and wise are seen: All this am I, have ever been, - in me dove, snake and swine convene!

Thus spoke the devil to me, once on a time: Even God has his hell: it is his love for man. And lately did I hear him say these words: God is dead: of his pity for man has God died.

It is not the victory of science that distinguishes our nineteenth century, but the victory of scientific method over science.

This is the antinomy: insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

All that exists is just and unjust and is equally justified in both respects.

And many such good inventions are there, that they are like woman's breasts: useful at the same time, and pleasant.

They fear their higher self, because when it speaks, it speaks demandingly.

Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes the intention of finding a rhyme.

He has heart who knows fear, but vanquishes it; who sees the abyss, but with pride. He who sees the abyss, but with eagle's eyes,- he who with eagle's talons grasps the abyss: he has courage.

The certain prospect of death could sweeten every life with a precious and fragrant drop of levity; and now you strange apothecary souls have turned it into an ill-tasting drop of poison that makes the whole of life repulsive.

We possess art lest we perish of the truth.

To make an individual uncomfortable, that is my task.

Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself. Let him follow his conscience, which calls out to him: "Be yourself! All that you are now doing, thinking, desiring, all that is not you.

Pitch-black winter nights live in my bones.

Only great pain is the ultimate liberator of the spirit….I doubt that such pain makes us 'better'; but I know that it makes us more profound.

My thoughts', said the wanderer to his shadow, 'should show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me where I am going. I love ignorance of the future and do not want to perish of impatience and premature tasting of things promised.

She has the power to both possess and shatter my entire universe, that is all.

So I ask my pride that it always go along with my wisdom. And when my wisdom leaves me one day alas - it loves to flyway - let my pride then fly with my folly.

But I am still far from them, and my sense does not speak to their sense. To men I am something between a fool and a corpse.

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

For some time now, our whole European culture has been moving with a tortured tension that is growing from decade to decade, as toward a catastrophe: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.