Friedrich Nietzsche

• "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.“
• "Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.“
• "The doer alone learneth.“
• "The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.“
• "We have art in order not to die of the truth.“
• "Art is the proper task of life.“
• "Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.“
• "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.“
• "For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.“
• "I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'“
• "When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.“
• "Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.“
• "Art raises its head where creeds relax.“
• "The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.“
• "Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.“
• "The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.“
• "He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.“
• "In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.“
• "The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.“
• "When one has not had a good father, one must create one.“
• "Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.“
• "The 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death.'“
• "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.“
• "The doer alone learneth.“
• "In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.“
• "Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.“
• "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.“
• "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.“
• "Faith: not wanting to know what is true.“
• "Fear is the mother of morality.“
• "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.“
• "If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.“
• "Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.“
• "Love is blind friendship closes its eyes.“
• "Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.“
• "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "The future influences the present just as much as the past.“
• "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?“
• "I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.“
• "Woman was God's second mistake.“
• "A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.“
• "Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?“
• "God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.“
• "There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.“
• "I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.“
• "The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.“
• "Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.“
• "When one has not had a good father, one must create one.“
• "All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.“
• "A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.“
• "I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'“
• "Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.“
• "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.“
• "Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.“
• "Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.“
• "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.“
• "The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.“
• "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 good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.“
• "All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.“
• "The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.“
• "A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.“
• "Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.“
• "A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.“
• "Success has always been a great liar.“
• "Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.“
• "Some are made modest by great praise, others insolent.“
• "When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.“
• "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.“
• "In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.“
• "An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.“
• "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.“
• "It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.“
• "The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.“
• "We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.“
• "Without music, life would be a mistake.“
• "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?“
• "Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?“
• "Art is the proper task of life.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life their Christianity, for instance.“
• "The lie is a condition of life.“
• "Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.“
• "We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.“
• "A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.“
• "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.“
• "The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.“
• "Love is blind friendship closes its eyes.“
• "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.“
• "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?“
• "There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.“
• "What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?“
• "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.“
• "I love those who do not know how to live for today.“
• "Love is not consolation. It is light.“
• "This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.“
• "Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.“
• "Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.“
• "Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.“
• "It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.“
• "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.“
• "When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.“
• "Stupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.“
• "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.“
• "A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.“
• "'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?“
• "There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life their Christianity, for instance.“
• "Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.“
• "Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.“
• "Whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.“
• "It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.“
• "In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.“
• "Without music, life would be a mistake.“
• "In music the passions enjoy themselves.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.“
• "The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!“
• "I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.“
• "God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.“
• "In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.“
• "There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.“
• "Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.“
• "The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.“
• "That which does not kill us makes us stronger.“
• "Success has always been a great liar.“
• "All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.“
• "I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.“
• "Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.“
• "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.“
• "All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.“
• "All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "We have art in order not to die of the truth.“
• "One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.“
• "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.“
• "Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.“
• "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.“
• "It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step 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.“
• "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.“
• "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.“
• "Mystical explanations are thought to be deep the truth is that they are not even shallow.“
• "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.“
• "The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.“
• "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.“
• "You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.“
• "The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.“
• "Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?“
• "There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.“
• "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.“
• "Women are considered deep - why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.“
• "Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.“
• "Stupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.“
• "Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.“
• "It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.“

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