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Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

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Famous Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

“Besides this I place another equally obvious confirmation of my view that opera is based on the same principles as our Alexandrian culture. Opera is the birth of the theoretical man, the critical layman, not of the artist: one of the most surprising facts in the history of all the arts. It was the demand of throughly unmusical hearers that before everything else the words must be understood, so that according to them a rebirth of music is to be expected only when some mode of singing has been discovered in which textword lords it over counterpoint like master over servant: For the words, it is argued, are as much nobler than the accompanying harmonic system as the soul is nobler than the body.”

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Book:The Birth of Tragedy
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“Who art thou then, O my soul!" (and here [Zarathustra] became frightened, for a sunbeam shot down from heaven upon his face." "O heaven above me," said he sighing, and sat upright, "thou gazest at me? Thou hearkenest unto my strange soul? When wilt thou drink this drop of dew that fell down upon all earthly things—when wilt thou drink this strange soul— —When, thou well of eternity! thou joyous, awful, noontide abyss! when wilt thou drink my soul back into thee?”

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Book:Thus Spoke Zarathustra
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“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.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“I will make an attempt to attain freedom, the youthful soul says to itself; and is it to be hindered in this by the fact that two nations happen to hate and fight one another, or that two continents are separated by an ocean, or that all around it a religion is taught with did not yet exist a couple of thousand years ago. All that is not you, it says to itself.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“No one talks more passionately about his rights than he who in the depths of his soul doubts whether he has any. By enlisting passion on his side he wants to stifle his reason and its doubts: thus he will acquire a good conscience and with it success among his fellow men.”

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Book:Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits
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“The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?”

KnowsMenHas BeensSoulFacesSpiritSufferingGrowthSecretGreatnessDisciplineEndureRuinsGrantedTensionMaskUnhappinessCunningFace To FaceInterpretingProfundityInventivenessEnhancement
Book:Basic Writings of Nietzsche
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“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
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“I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule -- and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.)”

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Book:Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist
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“Parasitism is the only practice of the church; with its ideal of anaemia, its holiness, draining all blood, all love, all hope for life; the beyond as the will to negate every reality; the cross as the mark of recognition for the most subterranean conspiracy that ever existed-against health, beauty, whatever has turned out well, courage, spirit, graciousness of the soul, against life itself.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we "really" experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”

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Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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“I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian Church the most terrible of all accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worse possible corruption. The Christian Church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche
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“At every step one has to wrestle for truth; one has to surrender for it almost everything to which the heart, to which our love, our trust in life, cling otherwise. That requires greatness of soul: the service of truth is the hardest service. What does it mean, after all, to have integrity in matters of the spirit? That one is severe against one's heart...that one makes of every Yes and No a matter of conscience.”

HeartMeanDoeSoulMatterSpiritStepsGreatnessIntegrityTruth IsConscienceSurrenderHardestSevereOur LoveEvery StepYes And No
Book:The Portable Nietzsche
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“I love him whose soul is lavish, who wanteth no thanks and doth not give back: for he always bestoweth, and desireth not to keep for himself.”

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Book:THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA (Modern Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the World’s Most Influential Philosopher, Revolutionary Thinker and the Author of The Antichrist, The Birth of Tragedy & Beyond Good and Evil
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“I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may succumb through a small matter: thus goeth he willingly over the bridge.”

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Book:THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA (Modern Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the World’s Most Influential Philosopher, Revolutionary Thinker and the Author of The Antichrist, The Birth of Tragedy & Beyond Good and Evil
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“I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgetteth himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.”

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Book:THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA (Modern Classics Series): The Magnum Opus of the World’s Most Influential Philosopher, Revolutionary Thinker and the Author of The Antichrist, The Birth of Tragedy & Beyond Good and Evil
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“If we affirm one moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event - and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.”

IfsSoulSelfMomentsExistenceEventsProduceNeededEternityChaosSufficientStringsAffirmationJustifiedRedeemedHarpsSelf Sufficient
Author:Friedrich Nietzsche
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