Background Image

...

Deception, Flattering, Lying, Deluding, Talking Behind The Back, Putting Up A False Front, Living In Borrowed Splendor, Wearing A Mask, Hiding Behind Convention, Playing A Role For Others And For Oneself -- In Short, A Continuous Fluttering Around The Solitary Flame Of Vanity -- Is So Much The Rule And The Law Among Men That There Is Almost Nothing Which Is Less Comprehensible Than How An Honest And Pure Drive For Truth Could Have Arisen Among Them.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

Deception, Flattering, Lying, Deluding,

Friedrich Nietzsche

...

Deception, Flattering, Lying, Deluding, Talking Behind The Back, Putting Up A False Front, Living In Borrowed Splendor, Wearing A Mask, Hiding Behind Convention, Playing A Role For Others And For Oneself -- In Short, A Continuous Fluttering Around The Solitary Flame Of Vanity -- Is So Much The Rule And The Law Among Men That There Is Almost Nothing Which Is Less Comprehensible Than How An Honest And Pure Drive For Truth Could Have Arisen Among Them.

Views: 18807

Topic

More From Friedrich Nietzsche

Those Who Know That They Are Profound Strive For Clarity. Those Who Would Like To Seem Profound To The Crowd Strive For Obscurity. For The Crowd Believes That If It Cannot See To The Bottom Of Something It Must Be Profound. It Is So Timid And Dislikes Going Into The Water.

Woman Is Essentially Unpeaceful, Like The Cat, However Well She May Have Trained Herself To Present An Appearance Of Peace.

People Who Comprehend A Thing To Its Very Depths Rarely Stay Faithful To It Forever. For They Have Brought Its Depths Into The Light Of Day: And In The Depths There Is Always Much That Is Unpleasant To See.

[heraclitus Had] Pride Not In Logical Knowledge But Rather In Intuitive Grasping Of The Truth.

Narrow Souls I Cannot Abide; There's Almost No Good Or Evil Inside

The Errors Of Great Men Are Venerable Because They Are More Fruitful Than The Truths Of Little Men.

The Misunderstanding Of Passion And Reason, As If The Latter Were An Independent Entity And Not Rather A System Of Relations Between Various Passions And Desires; And As If Every Passion Did Not Possess Its Quantum Of Reason.

Many Die Too Late, And Some Die Too Early. Yet Strangers Soundeth The Precept: "die At The Right Time!"

The World Is Poor For Him Who Has Never Been Sick Enough For This 'voluptuousness Of Hell

Did You Ever Say Yes To A Pleasure? Oh My Friends, Then You Also Said Yes To All Pain. All Things Are Linked, Entwined, In Love With One Another.

In Laughter All That Is Evil Comes Together, But Is Pronounced Holy And Absolved By Its Own Bliss.

The Usual False Conclusions Of Mankind Are These: A Thing Exists, Therefore It Has A Right To Exist.

In Morality, Man Treats Himself Not As Individuum But As Dividuum.

Let Us Guard Against Saying That There Are Laws In Nature. There Are Merely Necessities: There Is No One Who Commands, No One Whoobeys, No One Who Transgresses. Once You Understand That There Are No Purposes, Then You Also Understand That Nothing Is Accidental: For It Is Only In A World Of Purposes That The Word "accident" Makes Sense.

Man Is Not Equally Moral At All Hours, This Is Well Known. If His Morality Is Judged To Be The Capability For Great Self-sacrificing Resolutions And Self-denial (which, When Continuous And Grown Habitual, Are Called Holiness)

This Is One Of The Stout-hearted Old Warriors: He Is Angry With Civilization Because He Supposes That Its Aim Is To Make All Goodthings--honors, Treasures, Beautiful Women--accessible Even To Cowards.

Someone Who Does Not Write Books, Who Thinks A Lot, And Who Lives In Unsatisfying Society Will Usually Be A Good Letter- Writer.

Even Truthfulness Is But One Means To Knowledge, A Ladder--but Not The Ladder.

The Criminal Type Is The Type Of The Strong Human Being Under Unfavorable Circumstances: A Strong Human Being Made Sick.

We Do Not Place Especial Value On The Possession Of A Virtue Until We Notice Its Total Absence In Our Opponent.

The Flame Is Not As Bright To Itself As It Is To Those It Illuminates: So Too The Sage.

Men Have Hitherto Treated Women Like Birds Which Have Strayed Down To Them From The Heights; As Something More Delicate, More Fragile, More Savage, Stranger, Sweeter, Soulful--but As Something Which Has To Be Caged Up So That It Shall Not Fly Away.

I Looked For Great Men, But All I Found Were The Apes Of Their Ideals.

Few Are Made For Independence, It Is The Privilege Of The Strong.

The Form Of A Work Of Art, Which Gives Speech To Their Thoughts And Is, Therefore, Their Mode Of Talking, Is Always Somewhat Uncertain, Like All Kinds Of Speech.

The Higher We Soar The Smaller We Appear To Those Who Cannot Fly.

My Conception Of Freedom. — The Value Of A Thing Sometimes Does Not Lie In That Which One Attains By It, But In What One Pays For It — What It Costs Us. Liberal Institutions Cease To Be Liberal As Soon As They Are Attained: Later On, There Are No Worse And No More Thorough Injurers Of Freedom Than Liberal Institutions.

One Often Contradicts An Opinion When What Is Uncongenial Is Really The Tone In Which It Was Conveyed.

When Somebody Dies We Usually Need Reasons For Consolation, Not So Much To Alleviate Our Pain As To Excuse Ourselves For So Readily Feeling Consoled.

Whatever Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stronger.

Inspirational Tattoo

The Most Fatal Seductive Lie That Has Yet Existed

Ye Are Ugly? Well Then, My Brethren, Take The Sublime About You, The Mantle Of The Ugly!

Does Wisdom Perhaps Appear On The Earth As A Raven Which Is Inspired By The Smell Of Carrion?

We Have To Learn How To Come Out Of Unclean Situations Cleaner Than We Were, And Even How To Wash Ourselves With Dirty Water Whenwe Need To.

The Real World Is Much Smaller Than The Imaginary

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?

Ah, Only He Who Knows Where He Sails, Knows What Wind Is Good, And A Fair Wind For Him.

To Be Moral, Correct, And Virtuous Is To Be Obedient To An Old Established Law And Custom.

Every Extension Of Knowledge Arises From Making The Conscious The Unconscious.

You're Going To Women? Don't Forget Your Whip!

The Superman Is The Meaning Of The Earth. Let Your Will Say: The Superman Shall Be The Meaning Of The Earth!

With The Unknown, One Is Confronted With Danger, Discomfort, And Care; The First Instinct Is To Abolish These Painful States. First Principle: Any Explanation Is Better Than None. . . . The Causal Instinct Is Thus Conditional Upon, And Excited By, The Feeling Of Fear. The "why?" Shall, If At All Possible, Not Give The Cause For Its Own Sake So Much As For A Particular Kind Of Cause -- A Cause That Is Comforting, Liberating, And Relieving.

There Is No Pre-established Harmony Between The Furtherance Of Truth And The Well-being Of Mankind.

In Bach There Is Still Too Much Crude Christianity, Crude Germanism, Crude Scholasticism; He Stands On The Threshold Of European (modern) Music, But He Looks Back From There To The Middle Ages.

It Is Far Pleasanter To Injure And Afterwards Beg Forgiveness Than To Be Injured And Grant Forgiveness. He Who Does The Former Gives Evidence Of Power And Afterwards Of Kindness Of Character.

Most Of The Time In Married Life Is Taken Up By Talk.

A Man Who Whinnies With Noisy Laughter, Surpasses All The Animals In Vulgarity.

Some Are Made Modest By Great Praise, Others Insolent.

On The Heights It Is Warmer Than People In The Valley Suppose, Especially In Winter. The Thinker Recognizes The Full Import Of This Simile.

The Thought Is Merely A Sign, As The Word Is Merely A Sign For The Thought.

The Man Who Does Not Wish To Be One Of The Mass Only Needs To Cease To Be Easy On Himself.

Socialism Is The Phantastic Younger Brother Of Despotism, Which It Wants To Inherit. Socialism Wants To Have The Fullness Of State Force Which Before Only Existed In Despotism. ... However, It Goes Further Than Anything In The Past Because It Aims At The Formal Destruction Of The Individual ... Who ... Can Be Used To Improve Communities By An Expedient Organ Of Government.

The Advent Of The Christian God, As The Maximum God Attained So Far, Was Therefore Accompanied By The Maximum Feeling Of Guilty Indebtedness On Earth.

If A Woman Seeks Education It Is Probably Because Her Sexual Apparatus Is Malfunctioning.

By Means Of Music The Very Passions, Enjoy Themselves.

Ultimately, No One Can Extract From Things, Books Included, More Than He Already Knows.

When We Have A Great Goal We Are Superior Even To Justice, Not Merely To Our Deeds And Our Judges.

Crude Men Who Feel Themselves Insulted Tend To Assess The Degree Of Insult As High As Possible, And Talk About The Offense In Greatly Exaggerated Language, Only So They Can Revel To Their Heart's Content In The Aroused Feelings Of Hatred And Revenge.

There Is More Wisdom In Your Body Than In Your Best Wisdom. And Who Then Knows Why Your Body Needs Precisely Your Best Wisdom?

[heraclitus Had] A Regal Air Of Certainty.

It Is Nobler To Declare Oneself Wrong Than To Insist On Being Right --especially When One Is Right.

Not By Wrath Does One Kill, But By Laughter.

What Was A Lie In The Father Becomes A Conviction In The Son.

Mathematics Is Merely The Means To A General And Ultimate Knowledge Of Man.

It Is Not Conflict Of Opinions That Has Made History So Violent But Conflict Of Belief In Opinions, That Is To Say Conflict Of Convictions.

Yet Where Is Your Inner Value When You No Longer Know What It Is To Breathe Freely; When You No Longer Have Freedom Over Your Own Selves

I Am Almost Equal To A Shadow.

The State Lies In All Languages Of Good And Evil; And Whatever It Says, It Lies-and Whatever It Has, It Has Stolen.

You Implanted Your Highest Goal Into The Heart Of Those Passions: Then They Became Your Virtues And Joys.

Young People Love What Is Interesting And Odd, No Matter How True Or False It Is. More Mature Minds Love What Is Interesting And Odd About Truth. Fully Mature Intellects, Finally, Love Truth, Even When It Appears Plain And Simple, Boring To The Ordinary Person; For They Have Noticed That Truth Tends To Reveal Its Highest Wisdom In The Guise Of Simplicity.

Do You Call Yourself Free? It Is Your Ruling Thought That I Would Hear, And Not That You Have Escaped From A Yoke.

The Beast In Us Must Be[78] Wheedled: Ethic Is Necessary, That We May Not Be Torn To Pieces.

Whoever Deliberately Attempts To Insure Confidentiality With Another Person Is Usually In Doubt As To Whether He Inspires That Person's Confidence In Him. One Who Is Sure That He Inspires Confidence Attaches Little Importance To Confidentiality.

Never To Read Another Book That Was Born And Baptized (with Ink) At The Same Time.

I Teach The No To All That Makes Weak--that Exhausts. I Teach The Yes To All That Strengthens, That Stores Up Strength, That Pride.

If We Have Our Own Why Of Life, We Shall Get Along With Almost Any How. Man Does Not Strive For Pleasure; Only The Englishman Does.

Christians Call It Faith ... I Call It The Herd.

If There Were Gods, How Could I Endure Not To Be A God? Therefore There Are No Gods.

It Is Only Great Pain--that Slow, Sustained Pain That Takes Its Time, In Which We Are, As It Were, Burned With Smoldering Green Firewood--that Forces Us Philosophers To Sink To Our Ultimate Profundity And To Do Away With All The Trust, Everything Good-natured, Veil-imposing, Mild And Middling, On Which We May Have Previously Based Our Humanity. I Doubt That Such A Pain Makes Us 'better'--but I Know That It Makes Us Deeper.

Evaluation Is Creation: Hear It, You Creators! Evaluating Is Itself The Most Valuable Treasure Of All That We Value. It Is Only Through Evaluation That Value Exists: And Without Evaluation The Nut Of Existence Would Be Hollow. Hear It, You Creators!

Life Is Fountain Of Joy; But Where The Rabble Also Gather To Drink, All Wells Are Poisoned.

The Advantage Of A Bad Memory Is That One Enjoys Several Times The Same Good Things For The First Time.

Funny Inspirational

Moral Contempt Is A Far Greater Indignity And Insult Than Any Kind Of Crime.

For Those Who Need Consolation No Means Of Consolation Is So Effective As The Assertion That In Their Case No Consolation Is Possible: It Implies So Great A Degree Of Distinction That They At Once Hold Up Their Heads Again.

Everything Matters. Nothing's Important.

Christianity Has Taken The Part Of All The Weak, The Low, The Botched; It Has Made An Ideal Out Of Antagonism To All The Self Preservative Instincts Of Sound Life; It Has Corrupted Even The Faculties Of Those Natures That Are Intellectually Most Vigorous, By Representing The Highest Intellectual Values As Sinful, As Misleading, As Full Of Temptation.

Everything Good Is Instinct--and, As A Result, Easy, Necessary, Free.

What A Dissimilarity We See In Walking, Swimming, And Flying. And Yet It Is One And The Same Motion: It Is Just That The Load- Bearing Capacity Of The Earth Differs From That Of The Water, And That That Of The Water Differs From That Of The Air! Thus We Should Also Learn To Fly As Thinkers--and Not Imagine That We Are Thereby Becoming Idle Dreamers!

Every One Being Allowed To Learn To Read, Ruineth In The Long Run Not Only Writing But Also Thinking.

Wherever Progress Is To Ensue, Deviating Natures Are Of Greatest Importance.

When You Gaze Long Into The Abyss Of Sustainability, The Abyss Of Sustainability Also Gazes Into You.

How Lovely It Is That There Are Words And Sounds. Are Not Words And Sounds Rainbows And Illusive Bridges Between Things Which Are Eternally Apart?

Where I Found The Living, There I Found The Will To Power; Even In The Will Of Servants I Found The Will To Be Master.

Perhaps No One As Yet Has Been Truthful Enough About What "truthfulness" Is.

What Is Good? All That Heightens The Feeling Of Power, The Will To Power, Power Itself In Man.

Horrible Experiences Lead Us To Wonder Whether The Person Who Experiences Them Might Not Be Something Horrible.

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.

So Far There Has Been No Philosopher In Whose Hands Philosophy Has Not Grown Into An Apology For Knowledge; On This Point, At Least, Every One Is An Optimist, That The Greatest Usefulness Must Be Ascribed To Knowledge. They Are All Tyrannized Over By Logic, And This Is Optimism In Its Essence.

Liberal Institutions Straightway Cease Being Liberal The Moment They Are Soundly Established: Once This Is Attained, No More Grievous And More Thorough Enemies Of Freedom Exist Than Liberal Institutions.

The Charm Of Knowledge Would Be Small Indeed, Were It Not That There Is So Much Shame To Be Overcome On The Way To It.

As A Human Being Plato Mingles Regal, Exclusive, And Self-contained Features With Melancholy Compassion.

Who Is Better, They Who Promote Truth Over Happiness, Or Happiness Over Truth?

Love Is A State In Which A Man Sees Things Most Decidedly As They Are Not.

Many Deeds Are Done So As To Forget Another Deed: There Are Also Opiate Activities. I Exist So That Another Will Be Forgotten.

Every Habit Makes Our Hand More Witty And Our Wit Less Handy.

A Friend Whose Hopes We Cannot Satisfy Is A Friend We Would Rather Have As An Enemy.

Deep Is The Well Of Truth And Long Does It Take To Know What Has Fallen Into Its Depths.

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.

Your God Is Dead And Only The Ignorant Weep. And If You Claim There Is A Hell, Then We Shall Meet There!

Let Your Love To Life Be Love To Your Highest Hope; And Let Your Highest Hope Be The Highest Thought Of Life!

Thoughts On Life

Death. The Certain Prospect Of Death Could Sweeten Every Life With A Precious And Fragrant Drop Of Levity- And Now You Strange Apothecary Souls Have Turned It Into An Ill-tasting Drop Of Poison That Makes The Whole Of Life Repulsive.

I Love Something: And Scarcely Do I Love It Completely When The Tyrant In Me Says: "i Want That In Sacrifice." This Cruelty Is In My Entrails. Behold! I Am Evil.

Error Has Made Animals Into Men; Is Truth In A Position To Make Men Into Animals Again?

Whenever The Truth Is Uncovered, The Artist Will Always Cling With Rapt Gaze To What Still Remains Covering Even After Such Uncovering; But The Theoretical Man Enjoys And Finds Satisfaction In The Discarded Covering And Finds The Highest Object Of His Pleasure In The Process Of An Ever Happy Uncovering That Succeeds Through His Own Efforts.

The Empty, The One, The Unmoved, The Full, Satiation, Wanting Nothing--that Would Be My Evil: In Short, Dreamless Sleep.

Be Careful When You Cast Out Your Demons That You Don’t Throw Away The Best Of Yourself.

Now Know I Well What People Sought Formerly Above All Else When They Sought Teachers Of Virtue. Good Sleep They Sought For Themselves, And Poppy-head Virtues To Promote It! To All Those Be-lauded Sages Of The Academic Chairs, Wisdom Was Sleep Without Dreams: They Knew No Higher Significance Of Life. Even At Present, To Be Sure, There Are Some Like This Preacher Of Virtue, And Not Always So Honorable: But Their Time Is Past. And Not Much Longer Do They Stand: There They Already Lie. Blessed Are Those Drowsy Ones: For They Shall Soon Nod To Sleep.-thus Spoke Zarathustra.

I Speak And The Child Plays: Who Can Be More Serious Than We Are?

The Refinement Of Shame. People Are Not Ashamed To Think Something Foul, But They Are Ashamed When They Think These Foul Thoughts Are Attributed To Them.

Being Human Is A Complicated Gig. So Give That Ol' Dark Night Of The Soul A Hug. Howl The Eternal Yes!

Your Educators Can Only Be Your Liberators.

Even Today A Crude Sort Of Persecution Is All That Is Required To Create An Honorable Name For Any Sect, No Matter How Indifferent In Itself.

There Is A Certain Right By Which We Many Deprive A Man Of Life, But None By Which We May Deprive Him Of Death; This Is Mere Cruelty.

That God Became Man Indicates Only This: That Man Should Not Seek His Salvation In Eternity, But Rather Establish His Heaven On Earth.

The Surest Sign Of The Estrangement Of The Opinions Of Two Persons Is When They Both Say Something Ironical To Each Other And Neither Of Them Feels The Irony.

Without Music, Life Would Be A Mistake.

Every Man Has His Price. This Is Not True. But For Every Man There Exists A Bait Which He Cannot Resist Swallowing.

One Begins To Mistrust Very Clever People When They Become Embarrassed.

Whoever Aims Publicly At Great Things And At Length Perceives Secretly That He Is Too Weak To Achieve Them, Has Usually Also Insufficient Strength To Renounce His Aims Publicly, And Then Inevitably Becomes A Hypocrite.

But In The End One Also Has To Understand That The Needs That Religion Has Satisfied And Philosophy Is Now Supposed To Satisfy Are Not Immutable; They Can Be Weakened And Exterminated. Consider, For Example, That Christian Distress Of Mind That Comes From Sighing Over Ones Inner Depravity And Care For Ones Salvation - All Concepts Originating In Nothing But Errors Of Reason And Deserving, Not Satisfaction, But Obliteration.

Spiritual Strength And Passion, When Accompanied By Bad Manners, Only Provoke Loathing.

Success Has Always Been A Great Liar.

Congratulations

I Was In Darkness, But I Took Three Steps And Found Myself In Paradise. The First Step Was A Good Thought, The Second, A Good Word; And The Third, A Good Deed.

To Learn From Our Enemies Is The Best Pathway To Loving Them: For It Makes Us Grateful To Them.

Whenever The Strength Of A Belief Strongly Steps Into The Foreground, We Must Infer A Certain Weakness Of Demonstrability And The Improbability Of That Belief.

Yes, Life Is A Woman!

Art Depends Upon The Inexactitude Of Sight.

Lust And Self-mutilation Are Closely Related Impulses. There Are Also Self-mutilators Among Knowers: They Do Not Want To Be Creators Under Any Circumstances.

Where The Past Is Venerated The Clean And Those Who Clean Things Up Should Be Kept Out. Piety Is Never Happy Without A Little Dust, Dirt, And Rubbish.

Man Is More Sensitive To The Contempt That Others Feel Towards Him Than To The Contempt That He Feels Towards Himself.

Only Individuals Have A Sense Of Responsibility.

Sense Of Responsibility

Whoever Reaches His Ideal Transcends It Eo Ipso.

How I Understand The Philosopher - As A Terrible Explosive, Endangering Everthing... My Concept Of The Philosopher Is Worlds Removed From Any Concept That Would Include Even A Kant, Not To Speak Of Academic "ruminants" And Other Professors Of Philosophy.

Men Seldom Persevere In A Vocation Unless They Believe Or Can Convince Themselves That It Is Fundamentally More Important Than Anyother Calling. Women Are The Same With Their Lovers.

Invisible Threads Are The Strongest Ties.

If You Are Too Weak To Give Yourselves Your Own Law, Then A Tyrant Shall Lay His Yoke Upon You And Say: "obey! Clench Your Teeth And Obey!" And All Good And Evil Shall Be Drowned In Obedience To Him.

I Can Still Stand On Life's Narrowest Footing: But Who Would I Be Were I To Show You This Art. Would You Like To See A Ropedancer?

On All The Walls, Wherever Walls Exist, I Will Inscribe This Eternal Indictment Of Christianity--i Have Letters To Make Even Blindmen See.... I Call Christianity The Single Great Curse, The Single Great Innermost Depravity, The Single Great Instinct Of Revenge, For Which No Means Is Poisonous, Secretive, Subterranean, Small Enough--i Call It Mankind's Single Immortal Blemish.... And We Reckon Time From The Dies Nefastus With Which This Calamity Arose--following Christianity's First Day!--why Not Following Its Last Day, Instead?--following Today?--transvaluation Of All Values!

Everything Which Distinguishes Man From The Animals Depends Upon This Ability To Volatilize Perceptual Metaphors In A Schema, And Thus To Dissolve An Image Into A Concept.

The Will To Truth Is Merely The Longing For A Stable World.

Whoever Knows He Is Deep Tries To Be Clear, But Whoever Wants To Seem Deep To The Crowd Tries To Be Obscure. For The Crowd Supposes That Anything It Cannot See To The Bottom Must Be Deep: It Is So Timid And Goes So Unwillingly Into The Water.

Good Manners Disappear In Proportion As The Influence Of A Court And An Exclusive Aristocracy Lessens; This Decrease Can Be Plainly Observed From Decade To Decade By Those Who Have An Eye For Public Behavior, Which Grows Visibly.

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.

Enjoy Life. This Is Not A Dress Rehearsal.

That Which Needs To Be Proved Cannot Be Worth Much.

Righteousness Exalteth A Nation.

How Much Rationality And Higher Protection There Is In Such Self-deception, And How Much Falseness I Still Require In Order To Allow Myself Again And Again The Luxury Of My Sincerity.

At Times One Remains Faithful To A Cause Only Because Its Opponents Do Not Cease To Be Insipid.

Mozart, The Last Chord Of A Centuries-old Great European Taste.

All Idealists Imagine That The Causes They Serve Are Fundamentally Better Than Any Other Causes In The World, And They Refuse To Believe That If Their Cause Is To Flourish At All It Requires Precisely The Same Foul-smelling Manure That Is Necessary To All Other Human Undertakings.

What We Know Oman Today Is Limited Precisely By The Extent To Which We Have Regarded Him As A Machine.

Physician, Help Yourself: Thus Help Your Patient Too. Let This Be His Best Help: That He May Behold With His Eyes The Man Who Heals Himself.

If Virtue Goes To Sleep, It Will Be More Vigorous When It Awakes.

Inaction, Letting Be, Neither Creating Nor Destroying--that Is My Evil. And Also The Knower As One Without Desire.

The Beating Of Drums, Which Delights Young Writers Who Serve A Party, Sounds To Him Who Does Not Belong To The Party Line Like A Rattling Of Chains, And Excites Sympathy Rather Than Admiration.

Lying Very Still And Thinking Very Little Is The Most Inexpensive Medicine For All The Sicknesses Of The Soul, And When Administered With Good Intentions It Grows More And More Pleasant With Each Passing Hour.

The Ascetic Makes A Necessity Of Virtue.

You I Advise Not To Work, But To Fight. You I Advise Not To Peace, But To Victory. Let Your Work Be A Fight, Let Your Peace Be A Victory!

Thou Seekest Disciples? Then Thou Seekest Ciphers.

Happiness: Being Able To Forget Or, To Express In A More Learned Fashion.

Has Anyone...any Distinct Notion Of What Poets Of A Stronger Age Understood By The Word Inspiration? ... There Is An Ecstasy Such That The Immese Strain Of It Is Sometimes Relaxed By A Flood Of Tears, Along With Which One's Steps Either Rush Or Involuntarily Lag, Alternately. There Is The Feeling That One Is Completely Out Of Hand, With The Very Distinct Consciousness Of An Endless Number Of Fine Thrills And Quiverings To The Very Toes... Everything Happens Quite Involuntarily, As If In A Tempestuous Outburst Of Freedom, Of Absoluteness, Of Power And Divinity.

Whereas The Man Of Action Binds His Life To Reason And Its Concepts So That He Will Not Be Swept Away And Lost, The Scientific Investigator Builds His Hut Right Next To The Tower Of Science So That He Will Be Able To Work On It And To Find Shelter For Himself Beneath Those Bulwarks Which Presently Exist.

Happiness Is A Fata Morgana. The Only Way To Not End Up Unhappy Is To Not Long For Happiness.

When An Idea Is Just Rising On The Horizon, The Soul's Temperature With Respect To It Is Usually Very Cold. Only Gradually Does The Idea Develop Its Warmth, And It Is Hottest (which Is To Say, Exerting Its Greatest Influence) When Belief In The Idea Is Already Once Again In Decline.

The Great Works Are Produced In Such An Ecstasy Of Love That They Must Always Be Unworthy Of It, However Great Their Worth Otherwise.

Discontent Is The Seed Of Ethics.

What Does It Matter Whether I Am Shown To Be Right! I Am Right Too Much!--and He Who Laughs Best Today Will Also Laugh Last.

One's Own Self Is Well Hidden From One's Own Self; Of All Mines Of Treasure, One's Own Is The Last To Be Dug Up.

Sometimes We Owe A Friend To The Lucky Circumstance That We Give Him No Cause For Envy.

The World Is A Work Of Art That Gives Birth To Itself.

The Most Unequivocal Sign Of Contempt For Man Is To Regard Everybody Merely As A Means To One's Own Ends, Or Of No Account Whatever.

Willing Sets You Free: That Is The True Doctrine Of Will And Freedom--thus Zarathustra Instructs You.

A Man As He Ought To Be: That Sounds To Us As Insipid As "a Tree As It Ought To Be.

What Was Formerly Merely Sickly Now Becomes Indecent : It Is Indecent To Be A Christian Today.

A Noble Soul Is Not The One That Can Manage The Highest Flights But The One That Rises Very Little And Falls Very Little But Always Dwells In A Free, Resplendent Atmosphere And Altitude.

But By My Love And Hope I Beseech You: Do Not Throw Away The Hero In Your Soul! Hold Holy Your Highest Hope!

[heraclitus Had] The Highest Form Of Pride [stemming] From A Certainty Of Belief In The Truth As Grasped By Himself Alone. He Brings This Form, By Its Excessive Development, Into A Sublime Pathos By Involuntary Identification Of Himself With His Truth.

It Is Within Your Power To See That All You Have Experienced, Trials, Errors, Faults, Deceptions, Passions, Your Love And Your Hope, Shall Be Merged Wholly In Your Aim.

We Do Not By Any Means Think It Desirable That The Kingdom Of Righteousness And Peace Should Be Established On Earth (because Under Any Circumstances It Would Be The Kingdom Of The Profoundest Mediocrity And Chinaism); We Rejoice In All Men, Who Like Ourselves Love Danger, War And Adventure, Who Do Not Make Compromises, Nor Let Themselves Be Captured, Conciliated And Stunted; We Count Ourselves Among The Conquerors; We Ponder Over The Need Of A New Order Of Things, Even Of A New Slavery For Every Strengthening And Elevation Of The Type "man" Also Involves A New Form Of Slavery.

In His Heart Every Man Knows Quite Well That, Being Unique, He Will Be In The World Only Once And That No Imaginable Chance Will For A Second Time Gather Together Into A Unity So Strangely Variegated An Assortment As He Is: He Knows It But Hides It Like A Bad Conscience.

There Is No More Dangerous Error Than That Of Mistaking The Consequence For The Cause.

The First Opinion That Occurs To Us When We Are Suddenly Asked About Something Is Usually Not Our Own But Only The Current One Pertaining To Our Class, Position, Or Parentage; Our Own Opinions Seldom Swim On The Surface.

At The Very Moment When Someone Is Beginning To Take Philosophy Seriously, The Whole World Believes The Opposite.

Whether In Conversation We Generally Agree Or Disagree With Others Is Largely A Matter Of Habit: The One Tendency Makes As Much Sense As The Other.

People Who, Out Of An Inborn Moderation, Leave Every Glass Standing Only Half-emptied Refuse To Admit That Everything In The World Has Its Sediments And Dregs.

Completely True To Nature!' - What A Lie: / How Could Nature Ever Be Constrained Into A Picture? / The Smallest Bit Of Nature Is Infinite! / And So He Paints What He Likes About It. / And What Does He Like? He Likes What He Can Paint!

Whatever A Theologian Regards As True Must Be False: There You Have Almost A Criterion Of Truth.

Hope, In Its Stronger Forms, Is A Great Deal More Powerful Stimulans To Life Than Any Sort Of Realized Joy Can Ever Be. Man Must Be Sustained In Suffering By A Hope So High That No Conflict With Actuality Can Dash It - So High, Indeed, That No Fulfilment Can Satisfy It: A Hope Reaching Out Beyond This World.

What We Call Truths Are Just Those Errors That We Cannot Give Up.

In Every Age The Wisest Have Passed The Identical Judgment On Life: It Is Worthless.

Human Condition

Trending Author

Marian Anderson

Patrick J. Kennedy

Jonathan Franzen

Category