Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

Here and there on earth there is probably a kind of continuation of love; in which this greedy desire of two people for each other gives way to a new desire and greed, a shared higher thirst for an ideal above them. But who knows such love? who has experienced it? Its true name is friendship

Must one first batter their ears, that they may learn to hear with their eyes? Must one clatter like kettledrums and penitential preachers? Or do they only believe the stammerer?

There are many good inventions on earth, some useful, some pleasing: for their sake, the earth is to be loved. And there is such a variety of well-invented things that the earth is like the breasts of a woman: useful as well as pleasing.

A hearty meal is easier to digest than one that is too small.

Direct self-observation is not nearly sufficient for us to know ourselves: we need history, for the past flows on within us in a hundred waves; indeed, we ourselves are nothing but that which at every moment we experience of this continual flowing.

Yet tell me, my brothers: if a goal for humanity is still lacking, is there not still lacking--humanity itself?

Loneliness is one thing, solitude is another.

No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day. Ten times a day must thou overcome thyself: that causeth wholesome weariness, and is poppy to the soul. Ten times must thou reconcile again with thyself; for overcoming is bitterness, and badly sleep the unreconciled. Ten truths must thou find during the day; otherwise wilt thou seek truth during the night, and thy soul will have been hungry.

Warning to the despised. – If you have unmistakably sunk in the estimation of men you should hold on like grim death to decorum in society with others: otherwise you will betray to them that you have sunk in your own estimation too. When a man is cynical in society it is a sign that he treats himself like a dog when he is alone.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.—Nietzsche.

Why, said the saint, did I go into the forest and the desert? Was it not because I loved mankind far too well? Now I love God! Mankind I do not love; mankind is a thing too imperfect for me. Love of mankind would be fatal to me.

We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge--and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves--how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves?

Behold the good and just! Whom do they hate most? The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker:- yet he is the creator.

They have something of which they are proud. What do they call it, that which makes them proud? Culture, they call it; it distinguishes them from the goatherds.

My task: the dehumanization of Nature, and then the naturalization of humanity, after it has attained the pure concept of 'Nature'. Human beings and philosophers have in the past projected the human into nature — let us dehumanize nature.

He who maketh no secret of himself shocketh; so much reason have ye to fear nakedness! Aye, if ye were Gods, ye could then be ashamed of clothing!

Gratitude pours forth continually, as if the unexpected had just happened—the gratitude of a convalescent—for convalescence was unexpected…. The rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again.

Beethoven's music is music about music.

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?

Knowing one's 'individuality'. - We are too prone to forget that in the eyes of people who are seeing us for the first time we are something quite different from what we consider ourselves to be: usually we are nothing more than a single individual trait which leaps to the eye and determines the whole impression that we make.

The sublime man has the highest value, even when he is most delicate and fragile, because an abundance of very difficult and rare things have been bred and united in him.

What are man's truths ultimately? Merely his irrefutable errors.

And he will also find the little god whom girls like best: beside the well he lies, still, with his eyes shut. Verily, in bright daylight he fell asleep, the sluggard! Did he chase after the butterflies too much?... He may cry and weep - but he is laughable even when he weeps. And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance and I myself will sing a song for his dance: a dancing and mocking song on the spirit of gravity... (p.108 - The Dancing Song)

Still am I the richest and most to be envied - I, the lonesomest one!