Quotessence
Home / Authors / Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

Philologist

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsDoePhilosophyPeopleKnowsWantWorldShouldReligionSoulEvilMoralityLyingArtSpiritThinkingWayHumansMay

Famous Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

“With the unknown, one is confronted with danger, discomfort, and care; the first instinct is to abolish these painful states. First principle: any explanation is better than none. . . . The causal instinct is thus conditional upon, and excited by, the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all possible, not give the cause for its own sake so much as for a particular kind of cause -- a cause that is comforting, liberating, and relieving.”

IfsGivingFirstsKindStatesFeelingsCareCausesPrinciplesDangerParticularInstinctSakePainfulExcitedExplanationComfortingLiberatingDiscomfortAbolishConditional
Book:The Portable Nietzsche
Create image

“Knapsack of the Metaphysicians.- Those who boast so mightily of the scientificality of their metaphysics should receive no answer; it is enough to pluck at the bundle which, with a certain degree of embarrassment, they keep concealed behind their back; if one succeeds in opening it, the products of that scientificality come to light, attended by their blushes: a dear little Lord God, a nice little immortality, perhaps a certain quantity of spiritualism, and in any event a whole tangled heap of 'wretched poor sinner' and Pharisee arrogance.”

IfsShouldLittlesEnoughPhilosophyWholeLightCertainAnswersPoorBehindsLordNiceEventsProductsSucceedDegreesDearOpeningImmortalityArroganceSinnerQuantityMetaphysicsBoastWretchedEmbarrassmentConcealedTangledPluckBundlesSpiritualismLord GodPharisees
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Socrates.- If all goes well, the time will come when one will take up the memorabilia of Socrates rather than the Bible as a guide to morals and reason... The pathways of the most various philosophical modes of life lead back to him... Socrates excels the founder of Christianity in being able to be serious cheerfully and in possessing that wisdom full of roguishness that constitutes the finest state of the human soul. And he also possessed the finer intellect.”

IfsHumansWellsSoulStatesReasonPhilosophyAbleMoralChristianitySeriousPhilosophicalVariousIntellectGuidesPossessedFoundersFinestHuman SoulPathwaysPossessingMemorabilia
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel in himself the force and will to inflict great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of it that is great, that belongs to greatness.”

IfsFeelsDoeMatterPainSufferingForceLinesAbilityDoubtCryGreatnessWeakSlaveInternalsDistressWeak Women
Book:The Gay Science
Create image

“If it is true to say of the lazy that they kill time, then it is greatly to be feared that an era which sees its salvation in public opinion, this is to say private laziness, is a time that really will be killed: I mean that it will be struck out of the history of the true liberation of life. How reluctant later generations will be to have anything to do with the relics of an era ruled, not by living men, but by pseudo-men dominated by public opinion.”

IfsMenMeanOpinionGenerationsSalvationErasLiberationLazyLazinessPublic OpinionReluctantPseudoRelics
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Faced with a world of "modern ideas" which would like to banish everyone into a corner and a "specialty," a philosopher, if there could be a philosopher these days, would be compelled to establish the greatness of mankind, the idea of "greatness," on the basis of his own particular extensive range and multiplicity, his own totality in the midst of diversity.”

IfsWorldIdeasWould BeModernMankindGreatnessParticularDiversityBasesPhilosopherCornersThese DaysRangeMidstCompelledTotalityMultiplicitySpecialty
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Philosophers are not honest enough in their work, although they make a lot of virtuous noise when the problem of truthfulness is touched even remotely. They all pose as if they had discovered and reached their real opinions through the self-development of a cold, pure, divinely unconcerned dialectic...; while at bottom it is an assumption, a hunch, indeed a kind of "inspiration" most often a desire of the heart that has been filtered and made abstract that they defend with reasons they have sought after the fact.”

IfsHeartKindHas BeensMadeRealSelfReasonEnoughPhilosophyFactsProblemInspirationDesireOpinionHonestColdDevelopmentPureBottomPhilosopherNoiseAbstractAssumptionTouchedVirtuousSelf DevelopmentTruthfulnessHunchesDialecticsUnconcernedNot Honest
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“In the 'in-itself' there is nothing of 'causal connections', of 'necessity', or of 'psychological non-freedom'; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or 'law'. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol world into things as if it existed 'in itself', we act once more as we have always acted- mythologically.”

IfsWorldDoeLawPurposeCausesNumbersEffectsProjectsConnectionsPsychologicalSymbolsMotiveRationalitySequenceConstraintsRelativity
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“It is certain that the Jew, if he desired-or if they were driven to it, as the antisemites seem to wish-could now have the ascendancy, nay, literally the supremacy, over Europe; that they are not working or planning for that end is equally sure... The resourcefulness of the modern Jews, both in mind and soul, is extraordinary.”

IfsMindSoulEndsSeemsCertainWishModernEuropeExtraordinaryJewDrivenPlanningSupremacyResourcefulnessAscendancy
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“The Hour-Hand of Life --- Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerably many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. Love, springtime, every beautiful melody, mountains, the moon, the sea - all these speak completely to the heart but once, if in fact they ever do get a chance to speak completely. For many men do not have those moments at all, and are themselves intervals and intermissions in the symphony of real life.”

IfsMenHeartRealMomentsFactsHandsBeautifulSpeakHoursChanceSeaMoonMountainReal LifeSignificanceMelodyIsolatedSymphonySpringtimeIntervalsVery BeautifulSilhouettesIntermission
Book:Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
Create image

“That the world is not the embodiment of an eternal rationality can be conclusively proved by the fact that the piece of the worldthat we know--I mean our human reason--is not so very rational. And if it is not eternally and completely wise and rational, then the rest of the world will not be either; here the conclusion a minori ad majus, a parte ad totum applies, and does so with decisive force.”

IfsKnowsWorldHumansMeanDoeReasonFactsForcePiecesWiseEternalRationalConclusionAdsRationalityEmbodimentHuman Reason
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Logic, too, also rests on assumptions that do not correspond to anything in the real world, e.g., on the assumption that there areequal things, that the same thing is identical at different points in time: but this science arose as a result of the opposite belief (that such things actually exist in the real world). And it is the same with mathematics, which would certainly never have arisen if it had been understood from the beginning that there is no such thing in nature as a perfectly straight line, a true circle, and absolute measure.”

IfsWorldDifferentRealBeliefLinesResultsUnderstoodLogicOppositesAbsolutesMathematicsEqualityCirclesAssumptionReal WorldIdenticalStraight Lines
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Whatever may be your desire to accomplish great deeds, the deep silence of pregnancy never comes to you! The event of the day sweeps you along like straws before the wind whilst ye lie under the illusion that ye are chasing the event,-poor fellows! If a man wishes to act the hero on the stage he must not think of forming part of the chorus; he should not even know how the chorus is made up.”

IfsThinkingKnowsMenShouldMayMadeLyingDesireWishPoorSilenceKnow HowStageEventsWindHeroIllusionFellowsDeedsAccomplishPregnancyChasingChorusStraws
Book:The Dawn of Day
Create image

“When, however, you have an enemy, then do not requite him good for evil: for that would shame him. Instead, prove that he did some good for you. And rather be angry than put to shame! And when you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather curse a little also! And if you are done a great injustice, then quickly add five small ones. Hideous to behold is he who is obsessed with an injustice.”

IfsWantLittlesDoneEvilEnemyFiveProveShameAngryAddInjusticeCurseObsessedBlessCursedHideous
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“Has anyone...any distinct notion of what poets of a stronger age understood by the word inspiration? ... There is an ecstasy such that the immese strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, along with which one's steps either rush or involuntarily lag, alternately. There is the feeling that one is completely out of hand, with the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and quiverings to the very toes... Everything happens quite involuntarily, as if in a tempestuous outburst of freedom, of absoluteness, of power and divinity.”

IfsSometimesFeelingsHandsInspirationHappensAgeNumbersConsciousnessStepsTearsPoetFineUnderstoodStrongerNotionThings HappenEndlessDivinityEcstasyFloodToesStrainRelaxedLagOutburst
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
Create image

“O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in "the truth," and in the SEARCH for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely-"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"-I wager he finds nothing!”

IfsMenHumanityIdiocyWagersTicklish
Book:BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL - Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: The Critique of the Traditional Morality and the Philosophy of the Past
Create image

“Different types of dangerous lives-You have no idea what you are living through; you rush through life as if you were drunk and now and then fall down some staircase. But thanks to your drunkenness you never break a limb; your muscles are too relaxed and your brain too benighted for you to find the stones of these stairs as hard as we do.”

IfsIdeasDifferentHardFallBrainBreakDangerousTypeStonesDrunkThanksNo IdeaMusclesNow And ThenRelaxedLimbsFalling DownStairsDrunkennessStaircases
Book:The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs
Create image