Quotes By Friedrich Nietzsche

It is not in how one soul approaches another but in how it withdraws that I know its affinity and solidarity with the other.

The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.

Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice. The influence of climate upon the bodily functions extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.

Assuming that he believes at all, the everyday Christian is a pitiful figure, a man who really cannot count up to three, and who besides, precisely because of his mental incompetence, would not deserve such a punishment as Christianity promises him.

One must first be firmly set in oneself, one must stand securely on one's own two legs otherwise one cannot love at all.

I see many soldiers; could I but see many warriors! "Uniform" one calleth what they wear; may it not be uniform what they therewith hide!

Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.

Noble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.

What, then, is truth? Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.

The melancholia of everything completed!

Species do not grow more perfect: the weaker dominate the strong, again and again-the reason being that they are the great majority, and they are also cleverer. Darwin forgot the mind (- that is English!): the weak possess more mind. ... To acquire mind, one must need mind-one loses it when one no longer needs it.

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.

A certain type of person strives to become a master over all, and to extend his force, his will to power, and to subdue all that resists it. But he encounters the power of others, and comes to an arrangement, a union, with those that are like him: thus they work together to serve the will to power. And the process goes on.

Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss!

How came gold to the highest value? Because it is uncommon, and unprofiting, and beaming, and soft in lustre; it always bestoweth itself.

With the eye of the thief it looketh upon all that is lustrous; with the craving of hunger it measureth him who hath abundance; and ever doth it prowl round the tables of bestowers.

Tell me, my brother, what do we think bad, and worst of all? Is it not DEGENERATION?-And we always suspect degeneration when the bestowing soul is lacking.

I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor, and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza: that I should have turned to him just now, was inspired by instinct.

Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.

In Germany there is much complaining about my eccentricities. But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been eccentric.