Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Friedrich Nietzsche

111 quotes

• “Freier Wille ohne Fatum ist ebenso wenig denkbar, wie Geist ohne Reelles, Gutes ohne Böses.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Fatum und Geschichte," April 1862

• “Sobald es aber möglich wäre, durch einen starken Willen die ganze Weltvergangenheit umzustürzen, sofort träten wir in die Reihe der unabhängigen Götter, und Weltgeschichte hieße dann für uns nichts als ein träumerisches Selbstentrücktsein; der Vorhang fällt, und der Mensch findet sich wieder, wie ein Kind mit Welten spielend, wie ein Kind, das beim Morgenglühen aufwacht und sich lachend die furchtbaren Träume von der Stirn streicht.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1862 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Fatum und Geschichte," April 1862

• “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.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1865 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11, quoted as epigraph in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (1961)

• “May I really say it! All truths are bloody truths to me—take a look at my previous writings.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1880 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Notebooks (Summer 1880) 4[271]

• “Style ought to prove that one believes in an idea; not only that one thinks it but also feels it.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé (August 1881), in Salomé's biography of Nietzsche, tr. Siegfried Mandel (1988)

• “Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1886 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Notebooks (Late 1886 – Spring 1887)

• “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." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)

• “So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1887 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Der Fall Wagner (1888)

• “Whoever wishes to justify [Philosophy] must show to what ends a healthy culture uses and has used philosophy. [...] Where could we find an instance of cultural pathology which philosophy restored to health? If philosophy ever manifested itself as helpful, redeeming, or prophylactic, it was in a healthy culture. The sick, it made even sicker.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), as translated by Marianne Cowan (1962), p. 27

• “Science rushes headlong, without selectivity, without “taste,” at whatever is knowable, in the blind desire to know all at any cost. Philosophical thinking, on the other hand, is ever on the scent of those things which are most worth knowing, the great and the important insights.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (posthumous), as translated by Marianne Cowan (1962), p. 43

• “Diesen Ernsthaften diene zur Belehrung, dass ich von der Kunst als der höchsten Aufgabe und der eigentlich metaphysischen Thätigkeit dieses Lebens im Sinne des Mannes überzeugt bin, dem ich hier, als meinem erhabenen Vorkämpfer auf dieser Bahn, diese Schrift gewidmet haben will.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Wie nun der Philosoph zur Wirklichkeit des Daseins, so verhält sich der künstlerisch erregbare Mensch zur Wirklichkeit des Traumes; er sieht genau und gern zu: denn aus diesen Bildern deutet er sich das Leben, an diesen Vorgängen übt er sich für das Leben.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In diesen Sanct-Johann- und Sanct-Veittänzern erkennen wir die bacchischen Chöre der Griechen wieder, mit ihrer Vorgeschichte in Kleinasien, bis hin zu Babylon und den orgiastischen Sakäen. Es giebt Menschen, die, aus Mangel an Erfahrung oder aus Stumpfsinn, sich von solchen Erscheinungen wie von "Volkskrankheiten", spöttisch oder bedauernd im Gefühl der eigenen Gesundheit abwenden: die Armen ahnen freilich nicht, wie leichenfarbig und gespenstisch eben diese ihre "Gesundheit" sich ausnimmt, wenn an ihnen das glühende Leben dionysischer Schwärmer vorüberbraust.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Der philosophische Mensch hat sogar das Vorgefühl, dass auch unter dieser Wirklichkeit, in der wir leben und sind, eine zweite ganz andre verborgen liege...”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Darum hat Lessing, der ehrlichste theoretische Mensch, es auszusprechen gewagt, dass ihm mehr am Suchen der Wahrheit als an ihr selbst gelegen sei...”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word 'justice' into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason... and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “He who thinks a great deal is not suited to be a party man: he thinks his way through the party and out the other side too soon.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Merchant and pirate...for a long period are one and the same person...Even to-day mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement on piratical morality.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A witticism is an epigram on the death of a feeling.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognises the full import of this simile.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Every individual action, every individual mode of thought arouses dread; it is impossible to compute what precisely the rarer, choicer, more original spirits in the whole course of history have had to suffer through being felt as evil and dangerous, indeed through feeling themselves to be so. Under the dominion of the morality of custom, originality of every kind has acquired a bad conscience.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: R. J. Hollingdale, trans. (1997) § 9

• “Christianity has succeeded in transforming Eros and Aphrodite—great powers capable of idealisation—into diabolical kobolds and phantoms.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Gott ist tot! aber so wie die Art der Menschen ist, wird es vielleicht noch Jahrtausende lang Höhlen geben, in denen man seinen Schatten zeigt. — Und wir — Wir müssen auch noch seinen Schatten besiegen.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “To what extent can truth endure incorporation? That is the question; that is the experiment.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Morality is herd instinct in the individual.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getötet.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier, simpler.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Glaubt es mir! – das Geheimnis, um die größte Fruchtbarkeit und den größten Genuß vom Dasein einzuernten, heißt: gefährlich leben!”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I teach you the Superman. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

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

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a dancing star.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Of all that is written, I love only what a man has written with his own blood.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Brave, unconcerned, mocking, violent—thus wisdom wants us: she is a woman, and loves only a warrior.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “In the mountains, the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that, you need long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are spoken, big and tall.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous toy.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Man is for woman a means; the end is always the child.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution—it is called pregnancy.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer the hangman and the sleuth-hound. Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their souls not only honey is lacking. And when they call themselves 'the good and just,' forget not, that for them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but — power!”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “They are not clean enough for me, either: they all disturb their waters so that they may seem deep.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Whence come the highest mountains? I once asked. Then I learned that they came out of the sea. The evidence is written in their rocks and in the walls of their peaks. It is out of the deepest depth that the highest must come to its height.”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Christianity is Platonism for the "people".”

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More