Quotes About Philosophy

When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man.

If you wish to understand a philosopher, do not ask what he says, but find out what he wants

'Faith' means not wanting to know what is true

Nothing is beautiful, except man alone: all aesthetics rests upon this naÔvetÈ, which is its first truth. Let us immediately add the second: nothing is ugly except the degenerating manóand with this the realm of aesthetic judgment is circumscribed.

Whoever is related to me in the height of his aspirations will experience veritable ecstasies of learning; for I come from heights that no bird ever reached in its flight, I know abysses into which no foot ever strayed.

Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire

We operate with nothing but things which do not exist, with lines, planes, bodies, atoms, divisible time, divisible space -- how should explanation even be possible when we first make everything into an image, into our own image!

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

After all, what would be "beautiful" if the contradiction had not first become conscious of itself, if the ugly had not first said to itself: "I am ugly"?

If we have our own 'why' of life, we can bear almost any 'how.'

Only idiots fail to contradict themselves three times a day.

Amor fati: that is my innermost nature. And as regards my long sickness, do I not owe to it unutterably more than I owe to my health?

Only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified.

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable.

Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions.

My doctrine is: Live that thou mayest desire to live again—that is thy duty—for in any case thou wilt live again!

My time has not yet come either; some are born posthumously.

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.