Quotes About Morality

Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.

Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.

To see others suffer does one good, to make others suffer even more: this is a hard saying but an ancient, mighty, human, all-too-human principle [....] Without cruelty there is no festival.

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in another or better life.

But thus I counsel you, my friends: Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. They are people of a low sort and stock; the hangmen and the bloodhound look out of their faces. Mistrust all who talk much of their justice! Verily, their souls lack more than honey. And when they call themselves the good and the just, do not forget that they would be pharisees, if only they had—power.

Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic, religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire, passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits of illogical thinking, this world has gradually become so marvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it has acquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the human intellect that has made appearances appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions into things.

Love of one is a piece of barbarism: for it is practised at the expense of all others. Love of God likewise.

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.

A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.

Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.

God is dead, but considering the state the species man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.

Morality is just a fiction used by the herd of inferior human beings to hold back the few superior men.

The complete irresponsibility of man for his actions and his nature is the bitterest drop which he who understands must swallow.

You say that a good cause will even sanctify war! I tell you, it is the good war that sanctifies every cause!

In letting God sit in judgment they judge themselves; in glorifying God they glorify themselves.

Almost everything we call higher culture is based on the spiritualization of cruelty.

The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we percieve that it is entirely lacking in our adversary.

Injustice and filth they throw after the lonely one: but, my brother, if you would be a star, you must not shine less for them because of that. And beware of the good and the just! They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue for themselves—they hate the lonely one.

Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like rascals.

One is punished most for one's virtues.

God is dead, God remains dead, and we have killed him.

Was aus Liebe getan wird, geschieht immer jenseits von Gut und Böse. (What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.)