Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

The Point of Honor in Deception.—In all great deceivers one thing is noteworthy, to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception, with all their preparations, the dreadful voice, expression, and mien, in the midst of their effective scenery they are overcome by their belief in themselves; it is this, then, which speaks so wonderfully and persuasively to the spectators. The

If one had the smallest vestige of superstition in one, it would hardly be possible to set aside completely the idea that one is the mere incarnation, mouthpiece or medium of an almighty power.

Pascal is right to assert that if we had the same dream every night, we would be as engaged by it as we are by the things we see every day. "If an artisan were sure of dreaming every night a full twelve hours that he was king, I believe," says Pascal, "he would be just as happy as a king who dreamed every night for twelve hours that he was an artisan.

Truly, a filthy stream man is. One must be a sea, to receive a filthy stream without becoming impure.

Para unos, la soledad es la huida del enfermo; para otros, la huida ante el enfermo.

Today a man with knowledge might easily feel like god transformed into an animal.

A soul that knows it is loved but does not itself love betrays its sediment: what is at bottom comes up. ?Epigrams and Interludes, Section 79

Companions, the creator seeketh, not corpses — and not herds or believers either. Fellow-creators the creator seeketh — those who grave new values on new tables.

Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.

Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live. The value for life is ultimately decisive.

The modern, noisy, time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud laboriousness educates and prepares for 'unbelief' more than anything else.

Um allein zu leben, muss man ein Thier oder ein Gott sein - sagt Aristoteles. Fehlt der dritte Fall: man muss Beides sein - Philosoph....

We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves … Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, 'Each is the farthest away from himself'—as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.

Willing liberates: for willing is creating: thus I teach. And you should learn solely in order to create!

the secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as long as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge!…(283).

There is great advantage to be gained in distantly estranging ourselves from our age and for once being driven as it were away from its shores back on to the ocean of the world-outlooks of the past. Looking back at the coast from this distance we command a view, no doubt for the first time, of its total configuration, and when we approach it again we have the advantage of understanding it better as a whole than those who have never left it.

Ohne Mythus aber geht jede Kultur ihrer gesunden schöpferischen Kraft verlustig: erst ein mit Mythen umstellter Horizont schließt eine ganze Kulturbewegung zur Einheit ab.

Yes, I recognize Zarathustra. His eyes are clear now, no longer does he sneer with loathing. Just see how he dances along!

Our eyes find it easier on a given occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more force, more "morality." It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new; we hear strange music badly. When we hear another language spoken, we involuntarily attempt to form the sounds into words with which we are more familiar and conversant—

For in one's heart one loveth only one's child and one's work; and where there is great love to oneself, then is it the sign of pregnancy: so have I found it.

Éste es mi camino, ¿dónde esta el vuestro?», así respondía yo a quienes me preguntaban «por el camino». ¡El camino, en efecto, no existe!

Of inference, all are capable; of judgment, only a few.

By and large, pity runs counter to the law of development, which is the law of selection. Pity preserves things that are ripe for decline, it defends things that have been disowned and condemned by life. […] In the middle of our unhealthy modernity, nothing is less healthy than Christian pity.

It is the fundamental idea of culture, insofar as it sets for each one of us but one task: to promote the production of the philosopher, the artist and the saint within us and without us and thereby to work at the perfecting of Nature... Only when, in our present or in some future incarnation, we ourselves have been taken into that exalted order of philosophers, artists and saints, shall we also be given a new goal for our love and hate.