Friedrich Nietzsche

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.

Everyone wears a mask of kindness, just as the devil wears human skin.

One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil.

Become who you are. Do what only you can do. Be the master and the sculptor of yourself.

Only thoughts reached by walking have value.

Never trust a thought that occurs to you indoors.

Nature doesn’t punish the evil, it punishes the weak.

Some are born to obey. Some are cursed to see.

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

A man with no money and a woman without beauty sees the world without illusion.

The most dangerous form of blindness is believing that your perspective is the only reality.

The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play.

A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.

Whoever wants to achieve something great must not seek to satisfy or please anyone but himself in his work: as soon as he fishes for the approval of others, it will not be anything great.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Nothing helps; I must help myself, or I am finished.

A man's maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.

If you kill a cockroach, you're a hero. If you kill a butterfly, you're a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria.

A matter that becomes clear ceases to concern us.

The barbarians of all ages possessed more happiness than we do.

Plato was a bore.

When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.

We have art to save ourselves from the truth.

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.

What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

What doesn't kill you makes you smaller

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

Either you think, or else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize and sterilize you.

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

There is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.

Women are considered deep - why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Fear is the mother of morality.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

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

Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?

There are no facts, only interpretations.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Woman was God's second mistake.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself.

The doer alone learns.

The crowd is untruth.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

A sedentary life is the real sin. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.

Happiness is the feeling that power increases – that resistance is being overcome.

To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.

The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously.

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

One who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him.

Is not life a hundred times too short for us—to bore ourselves?

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.