Friedrich Nietzsche - Quotes

What my idea is that every specific body strives to become master over all space and to extend its force (its will to power:) and to thrust back all that resists its extension. But it continually encounters similar efforts on the part of other bodies and ends by coming to an arrangement ("union") with those of them that are sufficiently related to it: thus they then conspire together for power. And the process goes on.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Will to Power. 1889.

My philosophy brings the triumphant idea of which all other modes of thought will ultimately perish. It is the great cultivating idea: the races that cannot bear it stand condemned; those who find it the greatest benefit are chosen to rule...
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Will to Power. 1889.

The world is poor for him who has never been sick enough for this 'voluptuousness of hell'.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and R. J. Hollingdale (Translator). Ecce Hommo. 1888.

All things considered, I could never have survived my youth without Wagnerian music. For I seemed condemned to the society of Germans. If a man wishes to rid himself of a feeling of unbearable oppression, he may have to take to hashish. Well, I had to take to Wagner...
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Clifton P. Fadiman (Translator). Ecce Hommo. 1888.

Some are born posthumously.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and H. L. Mencken (Translator). The Antichrist. 1888.

The very word “Christianity” is a misunderstanding—at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and H. L. Mencken (Translator). The Antichrist. 1888.

Yet the priests are, as is notorious, the worst enemies—why? Because they are the weakest. Their weakness causes their hate to expand into a monstrous and sinister shape, a shape which is most crafty and most poisonous. The really great haters in the history of the world have always been priests, who are also the cleverest haters—in comparison with the cleverness of priestly revenge, every other piece of cleverness is practically negligible.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Horace B. Samuel (Translator). The Genealogy of Morals. 1887.

While every aristocratic morality springs from a triumphant affirmation of its own demands, the slave morality says "no" from the very outset to what is "outside itself," "different from itself," and "not itself: and this "no" is its creative deed.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Horace B. Samuel (Translator). The Genealogy of Morals. 1887.

A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels to swallow.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Horace B. Samuel (Translator). The Genealogy of Morals. 1887.

Yet the priests are, as is notorious, the worst enemies—why? Because they are the weakest. Their weakness causes their hate to expand into a monstrous and sinister shape, a shape which is most crafty and most poisonous. The really great haters in the history of the world have always been priests, who are also the cleverest haters—in comparison with the cleverness of priestly revenge, every other piece of cleverness is practically negligible.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Horace B. Samuel (Translator). The Genealogy of Morals. 1887.

No shepherd and one herd! Everybody wants the same, everybody is the same: whoever feels different goes voluntarily into a madhouse.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 1885.

Behold, I teach you the overman! The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beseech you, my brothers, remain faithful to the earth, and do not believe those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poison-mixers are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying and poisoned themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so let them go!
Walter Kaufmann (Translator). "Body am I, and soul"—so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children?
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star. I tell you: ye have still chaos in you.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive - so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

When power becomes gracious and descends into the visible- I call such condescension, beauty. And from no one do I want beauty so much as from you, you powerful one: let your goodness be your last self-conquest.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

It is the still words which bring the storm. Thoughts that come with doves' footsteps guide the world.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Thomas Common (Translator). Thus Spake Zarathustra. 1885.

We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption; but how near or distant that is, nobody knows — not even God.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions — as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Without art we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of that perspective which makes what is closest at hand and most vulgar appear as if it were vast, and reality itself.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Good prose is written only face to face with poetry.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Morality is herd instinct in the individual.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Mystical explanations are considered deep; the truth is, they are not even shallow.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

What is now decisive against Christianity is our taste, no longer our reasons.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier, simpler
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

I want to have my lion and my eagle about me, that I may always have hints and premonitions concerning the amount of my strength or weakness. Must I look down on them today, and be afraid of them? And will the hour come once more when they will look up to me, and tremble?
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: — it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Walter Kaufmann (Translator). The Gay Science. 1882.

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that man grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

In civilized circumstances, everyone feels superior to everyone else in at least one way; this is the basis of the general goodwill, inasmuch as everyone is someone who, under certain conditions, can be of help, and need therefore feel no shame in allowing himself to be helped.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

However far man may extend himself with his knowledge, however objective he may appear to himself - ultimately he reaps nothing but his own biography.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

The distinction that lies in being unhappy (as if to feel happy were a sign of shallowness, lack of ambition, ordinariness) is so great that when someone says, "But how happy you must be!" we usually protest.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

If one notices how some individuals know how to treat their experiences (their insignificant everyday experiences) so that these become a plot of ground that bears fruit three times a year; while others (and how many of them!) are driven through the waves of the most exciting turns of fate, of the most varied currents of their time or nation, and yet always stay lightly on the surface, like cork: then one is finally tempted to divide mankind into a minority (minimality) of those people who know how to make much out of little and a majority of those who know how to make a little out of much; indeed, one meets those perverse wizards who, instead of creating the world out of nothing, create nothing out of the world.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Helen Zimmern (Translator). Human, All Too Human. 1878.

According to the old story, King Midas had long hunted wise Silenus, Dionysus' companion, without catching him. When Silenus had finally fallen into his clutches, the king asked him what was the best and most desirable thing of all for mankind. The daemon stood still, stiff and motionless, until at last, forced by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and spoke these words: 'Miserable, ephemeral race, children of hazard and hardship, why do you force me to say what it would be much more fruitful for you not to hear? The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second-best thing for you—is to die soon.'
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Shaun Whiteside (Translator). The Birth of Tragedy. 1872.

Lessing, the most honest of theoretical men, dared to say that he took greater delight in the quest for truth than in the truth itself.
Nietzsche, Friedrich and Shaun Whiteside (Translator). The Birth of Tragedy. 1872.