Quotes About Philosophy

Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God.

I do not know how to make a distinction between tears and music

Pain does not count as an objection to life

Aristotle says that in order to live alone one must either be an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking. A man must be both; a philosopher.

What really arouses indignation against suffering is not suffering as such but the senselessness of suffering...

The true world -- we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.

It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.

For those who need consolation no means of consolation is so effective as the assertion that in their case no consolation is possible: it implies so great a degree of distinction that they at once hold up their heads again.

I will teach men the meaning of their existence: the Superman, the lightning out of the dark cloud- man.

And must I not conceal myself like one who has swallowed gold- lest my soul should be ripped up?

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, an unknown sage - his name is self; he dwells in your body, he is your body. There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.

Everything that can be denied, deserves to be denied; and real sincerity means the belief in a state of things which cannot be denied, or in which there is no lie. The sincere man feels that his activity has a metaphysical meaning. It can only be explained by the laws of a different and a higher life; it is in the deepest sense an affirmation: even if everything that he does seem utterly opposed to the laws of our present life.

One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa-- blessing it rather than in love with it.

A thinking man never be a party man.

My formula is Amor fati: ... not only to bear up under every necessity, but to love it. Semboyanku ialah Amor fati: ... tidak saja tabah menanggung segala keharusan (penderitaan), melainkan juga mencintainya.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

Whoever does not believe himself always lies.

Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing: - the soul wished the body lean, monstrous, and famished. Thus it thought to escape from the body and the earth. But that soul was itself lean, monstrous, and famished; and cruelty was the delight of this soul! So my brothers, tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is not your soul poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency?

Was that - life? I will say to death. Very well! Once more!

It is only great pain--that slow, sustained pain that takes its time, in which we are, as it were, burned with smoldering green firewood--that forces us philosophers to sink to our ultimate profundity and to do away with all the trust, everything good-natured, veil-imposing, mild and middling, on which we may have previously based our humanity. I doubt that such a pain makes us 'better'--but I know that it makes us deeper.

Il cristianesimo dette da bere il veleno a Eros. Questi non ne morì, ma ben degenerò, in vizio.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything becomes — what? perhaps a 'world'?

God has given us music so that firstly we are lead towards higher things. Music combines all characteristics in it. It can elevate, it can tease, it can cheer us up, yes, it can even break the most brazen temperament with its tender and yearning sounds. However, its main aim is to direct our thinking towards higher things, to elevate and even deeply disturb us…