Friedrich Nietzsche quotes:

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.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

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?

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

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.

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

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

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

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

There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

And 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 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death.'

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

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

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

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.

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

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

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.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

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

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

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.

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

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

When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?

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

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

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

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.

Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.

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

If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.

Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.

To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane.

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

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.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.

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

When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

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.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

How good music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy.

Equality before the enemy -that is the main condition to fight a fair duel. Where you have contempt, you cannot wage war; where you are in command, where you can see someone beneath you, you should not wage war.

What is happening to me happens to all fruits that grow ripe. It is the honey in my veins that makes my blood thicker, and my soul quieter.

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

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

At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.

This book belongs to the most rare of men. Perhaps not one of them is yet alive. First the day after tomorrow must come for me. Some men are born posthumously.

The word Christianity is already a misunderstanding; in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the cross.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

One should hold fast one's heart; for when one letteth it go, how quickly doth one's head run away!

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

Anarchists are mouthpieces of a declining stratum of society; when they work themselves into a state of righteous indignation demanding 'rights', 'justice', 'equal rights', they are just acting under the pressure of their own lack of culture, which has no way of grasping why they really suffer, or what they lack in life.

State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth: 'I, the state, am the people.

Marriage as a long conversation. - When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this woman into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time that you're together will be devoted to conversation.

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it,if there were not a friend?The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth.

Morality negates life."

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments."

At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards."

That which intoxicates, the sensually ecstatic, the sudden surprise, the urge to be profoundly stirred at any price -- dreadful tendencies!"

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love."

Je ne sais ni entrer ni sortir .. je suis tout ce qui ne sait ni entrer ni sortir ."

Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.

The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.

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.

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

The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.

Life is an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power.

Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom.

Love is more afraid of change than destruction.

Death is close enough at hand so we do not need to be afraid of life.

I do not give alms; I am not poor enough for that.

Such a man as instinctively feeds on pure ambrosia and leaves alone the indigestible in things.

Emerson is a person who lives instinctively on ambrosia - and leaves everything indigestible on his plate.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be other than it is, not in the future, not in the past, not in all eternity.