Background Image

...

No, Life Has Not Disappointed Me. On The Contrary, I Find It Truer, More Desirable And Mysterious Every Year -- Ever Since The Day When The Great Liberator Came To Me: The Idea That Life Could Be An Experiment Of The Seeker For Knowledge -- And Not A Duty, Not A Calamity, Not Trickery.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

No, Life Has Not

Friedrich Nietzsche

...

No, Life Has Not Disappointed Me. On The Contrary, I Find It Truer, More Desirable And Mysterious Every Year -- Ever Since The Day When The Great Liberator Came To Me: The Idea That Life Could Be An Experiment Of The Seeker For Knowledge -- And Not A Duty, Not A Calamity, Not Trickery.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Friedrich Nietzsche

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

Even The Most Honest Writer Lets Slip A Word Too Many When He Wants To Round Off A Period.

The Job Of Rearing A Child Consists Of Making Conscious Activities Unconscious.

The Broad Effects Which Can Be Obtained By Punishment In Man And Beast, Are The Increase Of Fear, The Sharpening Of The Sense Of Cunning, The Mastery Of The Desires; So It Is That Punishment Tames Man, But Does Not Make Him "better.".

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

If You Wish To Understand A Philosopher, Do Not Ask What He Says, But Find Out What He Wants

Mystical Explanations Are Thought To Be Deep; The Truth Is That They Are Not Even Shallow.

He Who Climbeth On The Highest Mountains, Laugheth At All Tragic Plays And Tragic Realities.

The Inability To Lie Is Far From The Love Of Truth.

What A Person Is Begins To Betray Itself When His Talent Weakens--when He Stops Showing What He Can Do. Talent, Too, Is Ornamentation, And Ornamentation, Too, Is A Hiding Place.

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.

Intoxicating Joy Is It For The Sufferer To Look Away From His Suffering And Forget Himself. Intoxicating Joy And Self-forgetting, Did The World Once Seem To Me.

Sensuality Often Makes Love Grow Too Quickly, So That The Root Remains Weak And Is Easy To Pull Out.

We Should Consider Every Day Lost On Which We Have Not Danced At Least Once.

You Highest Men Whom I Have Ever Seen! This Is My Suspicion About You And My Secret Laughter: I Guess That You Would Call My Superman--a Devil!

Every Man Has His Price. This Is Not True. But For Every Man There Exists A Bait Which He Cannot Resist Swallowing. To Win Over Certain People To Something, It Is Only Necessary To Give It A Gloss Of Love Of Humanity, Nobility, Gentleness, Self-sacrifice - And There Is Nothing You Cannot Get Them To Swallow. To Their Souls, These Are The Icing, The Tidbit; Other Kinds Of Souls Have Others.

Alas, Where Is There Still A Sea In Which One Could Drown: Thus Our Lament Resounds – Across Shallow Swamps.

One Should Not Go Into Churches If One Wants To Breathe Pure Air.

Precisely This Is Godliness--that There Are Gods, But No God.

The Universe Without Music Would Be Madness.

There Is Always Some Madness In Love. But There Is Also Always Some Reason In Madness.

Not He Is Great Who Can Alter Matter, But He Who Can Alter My State Of Mind.

The Best Author Will Be The One Who Is Ashamed To Become A Writer.

Just As Bones, Tissues, Intestines, And Blood Vessels Are Enclosed In A Skin That Makes It Possible To Bear The Sight Of A Human Being, So The Agitations And Passions Of The Soul Are Wrapped Up In Vanity: It Is The Soul's Skin.

When One Has Not Had A Good Father, One Must Create One.

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

A Man Who Possesses Genius Is Insufferable Unless He Also Possesses At Least Two Other Things: Gratitude And Cleanliness.

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.

Our Body Is Simply A Social Structure Made Of Many Souls.

That, However, Is - Mediocrity, Though It Be Called Moderation.

What Does Your Conscience Say? — 'you Should Become The Person You Are'.

What Is The Greatest Thing Ye Can Experience? It Is The Hour Of Great Contempt. The Hour In Which Even Your Happiness Becometh Loathsome Unto You, And So Also Your Reason And Virtue.

Science Rushes Headlong, Without Selectivity, Without "taste," At Whatever Is Knowable, In The Blind Desire To Know All At Any Cost.

Truth Is The Kind Of Error Without Which A Certain Species Of Life Could Not Live. The Value For Life Is Ultimately Decisive.

There Is A Stupid Humility That Is Quite Common And When A Person Is Afflicted With It, He Is Once And For All Disqualified For Being A Disciple Of Knowledge.

The Stronger Becomes Master Of The Weaker, In So Far As The Latter Cannot Assert Its Degree Of Independence Here There Is No Mercy, No Forbearance, Even Less A Respect For "laws.

Give Me Today, For Once, The Worst Throw Of Your Dice, Destiny. Today I Transmute Everything Into Gold.

It Is A Terrible Thought, To Contemplate That An Immense Number Of Mediocre Thinkers Are Occupied With Really Influential Matters.

He Who Knows Himself To Be Profound Endeavors To Be Clear; He Who Would Like To Appear Profound To The Crowd Endeavors To Be Obscure.

People Are Always Angry At Anyone Who Chooses Very Individual Standards For His Life; Because Of The Extraordinary Treatment Which That Man Grants To Himself, They Feel Degraded, Like Ordinary Beings.

Great Indebtedness Does Not Make Men Grateful, But Vengeful; And If A Little Charity Is Not Forgotten, It Turns Into A Gnawing Worm.

Pardon Me, My Friends, I Have Ventured To Paint My Happiness On The Wall.

Where There Is Happiness, There Is Found Pleasure In Nonsense. The Transformation Of Experience Into Its Opposite, Of The Suitable Into The Unsuitable, The Obligatory Into The Optional (but In Such A Manner That This Process Produces No Injury And Is Only Imagined In Jest), Is A Pleasure.

I Love Him Who Justifieth The Future Ones, And Redeemeth The Past Ones: For He Is Willing To Succumb Through The Present Ones.

Compassion For The Friend Should Conceal Itself Under A Hard Shell.

On The Tree, Future, We Build Our Nest; And In Our Solitude Eagles Shall Bring Us Nourishment In Their Beaks!

If Married Couples Did Not Live Together, Happy Marriages Would Be More Frequent.

And As Long As You Are In Any Way Ashamed Before Yourself, You Do Not Yet Belong With Us.

The Sick Are The Greatest Danger For The Healthy; It Is Not From The Strongest That Harm Comes To The Strong, But From The Weakest.

Why Couldn't The World That Concerns Us- Be A Fiction? And If Somebody Asked, 'but To Be A Fiction There Surely Belongs An Author?'- Couldn't One Answer Simply: 'why? Doesn't This "belongs" Perhaps Belong To The Fiction, Too?'

I'm Not Upset That You Lied To Me, I'm Upset That From Now On I Can't Believe You.

Thus I Spoke, More And More Softly; For I Was Afraid Of My Own Thoughts And The Thoughts Behind My Thoughts.

To Go On Vegetating In Cowardly Dependence On Physicians And Machinations, After The Meaning Of Life, The Right To Life, Has Been Lost, That Ought To Prompt A Profound Contempt In Society.

Meaning Of Life

What I Really Want From Music: That It Be Cheerful And Profound Like An Afternoon In October.

One Lives For The Day, One Lives Very Fast, One Lives Very Irresponsibly: Precisely This Is Called "freedom."

Live For The Day

It Is Not Your Sin - It Is Your Moderation That Cries To Heaven; Your Very Sparingness In Sin Cries To Heaven!

Nothing Is More Pathological In Our Pathological Modernity Than This Disease Of Christian Pity.

A Man Who Wills Commands Something Within Himself That Renders Obedience, Or That He Believes Renders Obedience.

Underneath The Reality In Which We Live And Have Our Being, Another Altogether Different Reality Lies Concealed.

Many Are Obstinate With Regard To The Pathway Once They Have Set Upon It, Few With Regard To The Goal.

Systems Of Morals Are Only A Sign-language Of The Emotions.

It Is The Business Of The Very Few To Be Independent; It Is A Privilege Of The Strong.

The World Is Beautiful, But Has A Disease Called Man.

When A Woman Has Scholarly Inclinations There Is Usually Something Wrong With Her Sexuality.

Death Is Close Enough At Hand So We Do Not Need To Be Afraid Of Life.

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.

In This State One Enriches Everything Out Of One's Own Fullness: Whatever One Sees, Whatever Wills Is Seen Swelled, Taut, Strong, Overloaded With Strength. A Man In This State Transforms Things Until They Mirror His Power—until They Are Reflections Of His Perfection. This Having To Transform Into Perfection Is—art.

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.

The Priest Knows, As Every One Knows, That There Is No Longer Any "god," Or Any "sinner," Or Any "saviour" That "free Will" And The "moral Order Of The World" Are Lies : Serious Reflection, The Profound Self Conquest Of The Spirit, Allow No Man To Pretend That He Does Not Know It.

How Much Reverence Has A Noble Man For His Enemies!--and Such Reverence Is A Bridge To Love.--for He Desires His Enemy For Himself, As His Mark Of Distinction; He Can Endure No Other Enemy Than One In Whom There Is Nothing To Despise And Very Much To Honor! In Contrast To This, Picture "the Enemy" As The Man Of Ressentiment Conceives Him--and Here Precisely Is His Deed, His Creation: He Has Conceived "the Evil Enemy," "the Evil One," And This In Fact Is His Basic Concept, From Which He Then Evolves, As An Afterthought And Pendant, A "good One"--himself!

It Is Regrettable That A Dostoyevsky Did Not Live Near This Most Interesting Of All Decadents (jesus Christ) - I Mean Someone Who Would Have Known How To Sense The Very Stirring Charm Of Such A Mixture Of The Sublime, The Sickly, And The Childlike.

Nobody Thanks A Witty Man For Politeness When He Puts Himself On A Par With A Society In Which It Would Not Be Polite To Show One's Wit.

He Who Cannot Command Himself Should Obey. And Many Can Command Themselves, But Much Is Still Lacking Before They Can Obey Themselves.

Whatever We Have Words For, That We Have Already Got Beyond.

The Most Instructive Experiences Are Those Of Everyday Life.

It Is However A Disgrace To Pray! Not For All, But For You, And Me, And Whoever Has His A Conscience.

If The All Powerful God Controls Satan He Is An Accomplice, And If He Doesn't, He Is Not An All Powerful God.

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

Philosophical Systems Are Wholly True For Their Founders Only.

From Which Stars Have We Fallen To Meet Each Other Here?

Of All That Is Written, I Love Only What A Person Hath Written With His Blood.

A Married Philosopher Belongs To Comedy.

A Book Full Of Brilliance Imparts Some Of It Even To Its Opponents.

There Exists Above The "productive" Man A Yet Higher Species.

There Are No Eternal Facts, As There Are No Absolute Truths.

The Inclination To Self-depreciation, To Freely Accepting Being Robbed, Being Duped, And Being Swindled, Could Be The Modesty Of A God Among Men.

The Surest Sign That Two People No Longer Speak The Same Language Is That Both Say Ironic Things To One Another But That Neither Senses The Irony.

What Are Man's Truths Ultimately? Merely His Irrefutable Errors.

He Who Knows Not How To Plant His Will In Things At Least Endows Them With Some Meaning: That Is To Say, He Believes That A Will Is Already Present In Them (a Principle Of Faith.)

Pity Is The Most Agreeable Feeling Among Those Who Have Little Pride And No Prospects Of Great Conquests.

One Has To Know The Size Of One's Stomach.

And I Offer You This Parable: Not A Few Who Sought To Cast Out Their Devil Entered Into The Swine Themselves.

Man Alone Suffers So Excruciatingly In The World That He Was Compelled To Invent Laughter.

When We Dream About Those Who Are Long Since Forgotten Or Dead, It Is A Sign That We Have Undergone A Radical Transformation And That The Ground On Which We Live Has Been Completely Dug Up: Then The Dead Rise Up, And Our Antiquity Becomes Modernity.

Courage Is The Best Slayer - Courage Which Attacketh, For In Every Attack There Is The Sound Of Triumph.

Only Individuals Have A Sense Of Responsibility.

Sense Of Responsibility

Only The Most Acute And Active Animals Are Capable Of Boredom.

In Loneliness, The Lonely One Eats Himself; In A Crowd, The Many Eat Him. Now Choose.

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.

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.

The Transition From Religion To Scientific Contemplation Is A Violent, Dangerous Leap, Which Is Not To Be Recommended. In Order To Make This Transition, Art Is Far Rather To Be Employed To Relieve The Mind Overburdened With Emotions. Out Of The Illogical Comes Much Good. It Is So Firmly Rooted In The Passions, In Language, In Art, In Religion, And Generally In Everything Which Gives Value To Life. It Is Only The Naive People Who Can Believe That The Nature Of Man Can Be Changed Into A Purely Logical One. We Have Yet To Learn That Others Can Suffer, And This Can Never Be Completely Learned.

Only He Who Is Man Enough Will Release The Woman In Woman.

The Wisest Man Would Be The One Richest In Contradictions, Who Has, As It Were, Antennae For All Types Of Men---as Well As His Great Moments Of Grand Harmony---a Rare Accident Even In Us! A Sort Of Planetary Motion---

And It Is The Great Noon When Man Stands At The Midpoint Of His Course Between Beast And Superman And Celebrates His Way To The Evening As His Highest Hope: For It Is The Way To A New Morning.

All Preachers Of Morality, As Also All Theologians Have A Bad Habit In Common: All Of Them Try To Persuade Man That He Is Very Ill, And That A Severe, Final, Radical Cure Is Necessary.

One Should Adpot Only Those Situations In Which One Is In No Need Of Sham Virtues, But Rather, Like The Tight-rope Dancer On His Tight Rope, In Which One Must Either Fall Or Stand--or Escape.

All Religions Bear Traces Of The Fact That They Arose During The Intellectual Immaturity Of The Human Race - Before It Had Learned The Obligations To Speak The Truth. Not One Of Them Makes It The Duty Of Its God To Be Truthful And Understandable In His Communications.

One Who Dresses In Rags That Have Been Washed Clean Dresses Cleanly To Be Sure, But Raggedly Nonetheless.

It Is No Doubt Possible To Fly--but First You Must Know How To Dance Like An Angel.

He Who Wills Believes With A Fair Amount Of Certainty That Will And Action Are Somehow One; He Ascribes The Success, The Carrying Out Of The Willing, To The Will Itself, And Thereby Enjoys An Increase Of The Sensation Of Power Which Accompanies All Success.

Tragedy Is Dead! Poetry Itself Died With It! Away, Away With You, Puny, Stunted Imitators! Away With You To Hades, And Eat Your Fill Of The Old Masters' Crumbs!

Enjoy Life. This Is Not A Dress Rehearsal.

Knapsack Of The Metaphysicians.- Those Who Boast So Mightily Of The Scientificality Of Their Metaphysics Should Receive No Answer; It Is Enough To Pluck At The Bundle Which, With A Certain Degree Of Embarrassment, They Keep Concealed Behind Their Back; If One Succeeds In Opening It, The Products Of That Scientificality Come To Light, Attended By Their Blushes: A Dear Little Lord God, A Nice Little Immortality, Perhaps A Certain Quantity Of Spiritualism, And In Any Event A Whole Tangled Heap Of 'wretched Poor Sinner' And Pharisee Arrogance.

To Be Natural Means To Dare To Be As Immoral As Nature Is.

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.

In Music The Passions Enjoy Themselves.

In Every Form Of Womanly Love Something Of Motherly Love Also Comes To Light.

Art Is The Great Stimulus To Life.

Could Truth Perhaps Be A Woman Who Has Reasons For Not Permitting Her Reasons To Be Seen? Could Her Name Perhaps Be--to Speak Greek--baubo?... Oh, Those Greeks! They Understood How To Live: To Do That It Is Necessary To Stop Bravely At The Surface, The Fold, The Skin, To Adore The Appearance, To Believe In Forms, In Tones, In Words, In The Whole Olympus Of Appearance! Those Greeks Were Superficial--out Of Profundity!

Silence Is Worse; All Truths That Are Kept Silent Become Poisonous.

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

To One Who Is Accustomed To Thinking A Lot, Every New Thought That He Hears Or Reads About Immediately Appears As A Link In A Chain.

One Never Perishes Through Anybody But Oneself.

Iron Necessity Is A Thing Which In The Course Of History Men Come To See As Neither Iron Nor Necessary.

One Had Better Put On Gloves Before Handling The New Testament. The Presence Of So Much Filth Makes It Highly Advisable.

Quidquid Luce Fuit Tenebris Agit: But Also The Other Way Around. What We Experience In Dreams, So Long As We Experience It Frequently, Is In The End Just As Much A Part Of The Total Economy Of Our Soul As Anything We "really" Experience: Because Of It We Are Richer Or Poorer, Are Sensitive To One Need More Or Less, And Are Eventually Guided A Little By Our Dream-habits In Broad Daylight And Even In The Most Cheerful Moments Occupying Our Waking Spirit.

Preparatory Human Beings. - I Welcome All Signs That A More Virile, Warlike Age Is About To Begin, Which Will Restore Honour To Courage Above All! For This Age Shall Prepare The Way For One Yet Higher, And It Shall Gather The Strength That This Higher Age Will Require Some Day - The Age That Will Carry Heroism Into The Search For Knowledge And That Will Wage Wars For The Sake Of Ideas And Their Consequences.

And Once You Are Awake, You Shall Remain Awake Eternally.

They're So Cold, These Scholars! May Lightning Strike Their Food So That Their Mouths Learn How To Eat Fire!

The Really Historical Performance Would Talk To Ghosts.

One Does Not Know - Cannot Know - The Best That Is In One.

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

We Ought To Fear A Man Who Hates Himself, For We Are At Risk Of Becoming Victims Of His Anger And Revenge. Let Us Then Try To Lure Him Into Self-love.

Let Thy Virtue Be Too High For The Familiarity Of Names, And If Thou Must Speak Of It, Be Not Ashamed To Stammer About It.

Some Men Have Sighed Over The Abduction Of Their Wives, But Many More Have Sighed Because No One Wanted To Abduct Theirs.

No One Can Draw More Out Of Things, Books Included, Than He Already Knows. A Man Has No Ears For That To Which Experience Has Given Him No Access.

Socrates ... Is The First Philosopher Of Life [lebensphilosoph], ... Thinking Serves Life, While Among All Previous Philosophers Life Had Served Thought And Knowledge. ... Thus Socratic Philosophy Is Absolutely Practical: It Is Hostile To All Knowledge Unconnected To Ethical Implications.

Many People Wait Throughout Their Whole Lives For The Chance To Be Good In Their Own Fashion.

It Is Impossible To Suffer Without Making Someone Pay For It; Every Complaint Already Contains Revenge.

Very Early In My Life I Took The Question Of The Relation Of Art To Truth Seriously: Even Now I Stand In Holy Dread In The Face Of This Discordance. My First Book Was Devoted To It. The Birth Of Tragedy Believes In Art On The Background Of Another Belief

A Small Revenge Is More Human Than No Revenge At All.

Perhaps I Know Best Why It Is Man Alone Who Laughs; He Alone Suffers So Deeply That He Had To Invent Laughter.

In Order To Acquire Intellect One Must Need It. One Loses It When It Is No Longer Necessary.

Denn Was Ist Freiheit? Dasz Man Den Willen Zur Selbstverantwortlichkeit Hat.

We Are Most Unfair To God; We Do Not Allow Him To Sin.

Ultimately, It Is The Desire, Not The Desired, That We Love.

What We Do In Dreams We Also Do When We Are Awake: We Invent And Fabricate The Person With Whom We Associate - And Immediately Forget We Have Done So.

Every Profound Spirit Needs A Mask: Even More, Around Every Profound Spirit A Mask Is Continually Growing.

Hope In Reality Is The Worst Of All Evils Because It Prolongs The Torments Of Man.

Where One Despises, One Cannot Wage War.

Almost Two Thousand Years, And No New God!

Against War It May Be Said That It Makes The Victor Stupid And The Vanquished Revengeful.

Memory Says, 'i Did That.' Pride Replies, 'i Could Not Have Done That.' Eventually, Memory Yields.

Even The Bravest Only Rarely Have Courage For What They Really Know.

Along The Journey We Commonly Forget Its Goal. Almost Every Vocation Is Chosen And Entered Upon As A Means To A Purpose But Is Ultimately Continued As A Final Purpose In Itself. Forgetting Our Objectives Is The Most Frequent Stupidity In Which We Indulge Ourselves.

Marriage Was Contrived For Ordinary People, For People Who Are Capable Of Neither Great Love Nor Great Friendship, Which Is To Say, For Most People--but Also For Those Exceptionally Rare Ones Who Are Capable Of Love As Well As Of Friendship.

Man... Cannot Learn To Forget, But Hangs On The Past: However Far Or Fast He Runs, That Chain Runs With Him.

Every Man Who Has Declared That Some Other Man Is An Ass Or A Scoundrel, Gets Angry When The Other Man Conclusively Shows That The Assertion Was Erroneous.

O Sancta Simplicitas! What Strange Simplification And Falsification Mankind Lives On! One Can Never Cease To Marvel Once One Has Acquired Eyes For This Marvel! How We Have Made Everything Around Us Bright And Free And Easy And Simple! How We Have Known How To Bestow On Our Senses A Passport To Everything Superficial, On Our Thoughts A Divine Desire For Wanton Gambling And False Conclusions! - How We Have From The Very Beginning Understood How To Retain Our Ignorance So As To Enjoy An Almost Inconceivable Freedom, Frivolity, Impetuosity, Bravery, Cheerfulness Of Life, So As To Enjoy Life!

If We Possess A Why Of Life We Can Put Up With Almost Any How.

The 'kingdom Of Heaven' Is A Condition Of The Heart - Not Something That Comes 'upon The Earth' Or 'after Death.'

I Have Learned To Walk: Since Then I Have Run. I Have Learned To Fly: Since Then I Do Not Have To Be Pushed In Order To Move. Now I Am Nimble, Now I Fly, Now I See Myself Under Myself, Now A God Dances Within Me.

A Good Aphorism Is Too Hard For The Tooth Of Time, And Is Not Worn Away By All The Centuries, Although It Serves As Food For Every Epoch.

[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.

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.

The Christian Resolution To Find The World Ugly And Bad Has Made The World Ugly And Bad.

In Compassionate Men, Severity Is A Virtue.

The Hour-hand Of Life.

Every Man Is A Creative Cause Of What Happens, A Primum Mobile With An Original Movement.

Art Raises Its Head Where Creeds Relax.

He Who Humbles Himself Wants To Be Exalted.

Where Does One Not Find That Bland Degeneration Which Beer Produces In The Spirit!

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

Whoever Writes In Blood And Aphorisms Wants Not To Be Learned But To Be Learned By Heart.

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.

Freedom Of Opinion Is Like Health; Both Are Individual, And No Good General Conception Can Be Set Up Of Either Of Them.

The State Is The Coldest Of All Cold Monsters.

Our Sense Of The Tragic Waxes And Wanes With Our Sensuality.

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

Many Brief Follies--that Is What You Call Love. And Your Marriage Puts An End To Many Brief Follies, With A Single Long Stupidity.

The Most Spiritual Men, As The Strongest, Find Their Happiness Where Others Would Find Their Destruction: In The Labyrinth, In Hardness Against Themselves And Others, In Experiments. Their Joy Is Self-conquest: Asceticism Becomes In Them Nature, Need, And Instinct. Difficult Tasks Are A Privilege To Them; To Play With Burdens That Crush Others, A Recreation. Knowledge-a Form Of Asceticism. They Are The Most Venerable Kind Of Man: That Does Not Preclude Their Being The Most Cheerful And The Kindliest.

For Nothing Is More Democratic Than Logic; It Is No Respecter Of Persons And Makes No Distinction Between Crooked And Straight Noses.

Men Inadvertently Comport Themselves With Nobility When They Have Grown Accustomed To Wanting Nothing From Others And Always Giving To Them.

He Who Speaks A Bit Of A Foreign Language Has More Delight In It Than He Who Speaks It Well; Pleasure Goes Along With Superficial Knowledge.

The Soul Must Have Its Chosen Sewers To Carry Away Its Ordure. This Function Is Performed By Persons, Relationships, Professions, The Fatherland, The World, Or Finally, For The Really Arrogant - I Mean Our Modern Pessimists - By The Good God Himself.

In A Friend One Should Have Ones Best Enemy. You Should Be Closest To Him With Your Heart When You Resist Him.

Posthumous Men-myself, For Example-are Not As Well Understood As Timely Ones, But We Are Listened To Better. More Precisely: We Are Never Understood-hence Our Authority.

Behind Your Thoughts And Feelings, My Brother, There Stands A Mighty Ruler. An Unknown Sage - Whose Name Is Self. In Yourt Body He Dwells; He Is Your Body. There Is More Reason In Your Body Than In Your Best Wisdom.

No Shepherd And One Herd! Everybody Wants The Same, Everybody Is The Same: Whoever Feels Different Goes Voluntarily Into A Madhouse.

Happiness Is The Feeling That Power Increases - That Resistance Is Being Overcome.

Only In War Are You Holy, And When You Are Robbers And Cruel.

Whoever Wants To Set A Good Example Must Add A Grain Of Foolishness To His Virtue: Then Others Can Imitate And Yet At The Same Time Surpass The One They Imitate-which Human Beings Love To Do.

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

We Criticize A Man Or A Book Most Sharply When We Sketch Out Their Ideal.

Growth In Wisdom Can Be Measured Precisely By Decline In Bile.

Admiration For A Quality Or An Art Can Be So Strong That It Deters Us From Striving To Possess It.

We Forget Our Guilt When We Have Confessed It To Another, But The Other Does Not Usually Forget It.

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.

One Must Repay Good And Ill; But Why Just To The Person Who Did Us Good Or Ill?

One Thing A Man Must Have: Either A Naturally Light Disposition Or A Disposition Lightened By Art And Knowledge.

Trending Author

Robert Doisneau

Category