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Over Immense Periods Of Time The Intellect Produced Nothing But Errors. A Few Of These Proved To Be Useful And Helped To Preserve The Species: Those Who Hit Upon Or Inherited These Had Better Luck In Their Struggle For Themselves And Their Progeny. Such Erroneous Articles Of Faith... Include The Following: That There Are Things, Substances, Bodies; That A Thing Is What It Appears To Be; That Our Will Is Free; That What Is Good For Me Is Also Good In Itself.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

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Over Immense Periods Of

Friedrich Nietzsche

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Over Immense Periods Of Time The Intellect Produced Nothing But Errors. A Few Of These Proved To Be Useful And Helped To Preserve The Species: Those Who Hit Upon Or Inherited These Had Better Luck In Their Struggle For Themselves And Their Progeny. Such Erroneous Articles Of Faith... Include The Following: That There Are Things, Substances, Bodies; That A Thing Is What It Appears To Be; That Our Will Is Free; That What Is Good For Me Is Also Good In Itself.

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The Man Who Sees Little Always Sees Less Than There Is To See; The Man Who Hears Badly Always Hears Something More Than There Is To Hear.

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

Sometimes People Don't Want To Hear The Truth Because They Don't Want Their Illusions Destroyed.

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

A Certain Sense Of Cruelty Towards Oneself And Others Is Christian; Hatred Of Those Who Think Differently; The Will To Persecute. Mortal Hostility Against The Masters Of The Earth, Against The 'noble', That Is Also Christian; Hatred Of Mind, Of Pride, Courage, Freedom, Libertinage Of Mind, Is Christian; Hatred Of The Senses, Of Joy In General, Is Christian.

One Does Well To Put On Gloves When Reading The New Testament. The Proximity Of So Much Uncleanliness Almost Forces One To Do This.

When One Rows It Is Not The Rowing Which Moves The Ship: Rowing Is Only A Magical Ceremony By Means Of Which One Compels A Demon To Move The Ship.

Buddhism Is A Hundred Times As Realistic As Christianity It Is Part Of Its Living Heritage That It Is Able To Face Problems Objectively And Coolly; It Is The Product Of Long Centuries Of Philosophical Speculation.

No Artist Tolerates Reality.

We Labour At Our Daily Work More Ardently And Thoughtlessly Than Is Necessary To Sustain Our Life Because It Is Even More Necessary Not To Have Leisure To Stop And Think. Haste Is Universal Because Everyone Is In Flight From Himself.

Marriage Marks The End Of Many Short Follies - Being One Long Stupidity.

The Thought Of Suicide Is A Great Source Of Comfort: With It A Calm Passage Is To Be Made Across Many A Bad Night.

There Are No Limits To God's Compassion With Paradises Over Their One Universally Felt Want: He Immediately Created Other Animals Besides. God's First Blunder: Man Didn't Find The Animals Amusing, - He Dominated Them And Didn't Even Want To Be An 'animal.'

The Governments Of The Great States Have Two Instruments For Keeping The People Dependent, In Fear And Obedience: A Coarser, The Army; And A More Refined, The School.

Those Who Cannot Understand How To Put Their Thoughts On Ice Should Not Enter Into The Heat Of Debate.

Socrates Condemned Art Because He Preferred Philosophy And Only After Much Internal Struggle Did Plato Accept This Judgment.

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

All Credibility, All Good Conscience, All Evidence Of Truth Come Only From The Senses.

The More Abstract The Truth You Wish To Teach, The More Must You Allure The Senses To It.

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

The Masters Have Been Done Away With; The Morality Of The Common Man Has Triumphed.

Pity Is Extolled As The Virtue Of Prostitutes.

There Are Ages In Which The Rational Man And The Intuitive Man Stand Side By Side, The One In Fear Of Intuition, The Other With Scorn For Abstraction. The Latter Is Just As Irrational As The Former Is Inartistic.

For This Remains As I Have Already Pointed Out The Essential Difference Between The Two Religions Of Decadence : Buddhism Promises Nothing, But Actually Fulfils; Christianity Promises Everything, But Fulfils Nothing.

The Saying, "the Magyar Is Much Too Lazy To Be Bored," Is Worth Thinking About. Only The Most Subtle And Active Animals Are Capable Of Boredom.--a Theme For A Great Poet Would Be God's Boredom On The Seventh Day Of Creation.

Contentment Preserves One From Catching Cold. Has A Woman Who Knew That She Was Well Dressed Ever Caught A Cold? No, Not Even When She Had Scarcely A Rag On Her Back.

Surrounded By The Flames Of Jealousy, The Jealous One Winds Up, Like The Scorpion, Turning The Poisoned Sting Against Himself.

God Is Dead, God Remains Dead, And We Have Killed Him.

We Possess Art Lest We Perish Of The Truth.

Actual Philosophers... Are Commanders And Law-givers: They Say "thus It Shall Be!", It Is They Who Determine The Wherefore And Whither Of Mankind, And They Possess For This Task The Preliminary Work Of All The Philosophical Laborers, Of All Those Who Have Subdued The Past - They Reach For The Future With Creative Hand, And Everything That Is Or Has Been Becomes For Them A Means, An Instrument, A Hammer.

The Tree That Would Grow To Heaven Must Send Its Roots To Hell.

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

There Is Not Enough Religion In The World Even To Destroy Religion.

The Advocates Of A Criminal Are Seldom Artists Enough To Turn The Beautiful Terribleness Of The Deed To The Advantage Of The Doer.

Objectivity And Justice Have Nothing To Do With One Another.

Of All Evil I Deem You Capable: Therefore I Want The Good From You.

Just As A Waterfall Grows Slower And More Lightly Suspended As It Plunges Down, So The Great Man Of Action Tends To Act With Greater Calmness Than His Tempestuous Desires Prior To The Deed Would Lead One To Expect.

Pathetic Attitudes Are Not In Keeping With Greatness.

And If A Friend Does You Wrong, Then Say: "i Forgive You What You Have Done To Me; That You Have Done It To Yourself, However--how Could I Forgive That!

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. Hence It Is The Greatest Paradox In Literature, The Imperishable In The Midst Of Change, The Nourishment Which Always Remains Highly Valued, As Salt Does, And Never Becomes Stupid Like Salt.

Again And Again I Am Brought Up Against It, And Again And Again I Resist It: I Don't Want To Believe It, Even Though It Is Almost Palpable: The Vast Majority Lack An Intellectual Conscience; Indeed, It Often Seems To Me That To Demand Such A Thing Is To Be In The Most Populous Cities As Solitary As In The Desert.

I Cannot Believe In A God Who Wants To Be Praised All The Time.

Something Might Be True While Being Harmful And Dangerous In The Highest Degree. Indeed, It Might Be A Basic Characteristic Of Existence That Those Who Know It Completely Would Perish, In Which Case The Strength Of A Spirit Should Be Measured According To How Much Of The 'truth' One Could Still Barely Endure- Or To Put It More Clearly, To What Degree One Would Require It To Be Thinned Down, Shrouded, Sweetened, Blunted, Falsified.

The Moral Earth, Too, Is Round! The Moral Earth, Too, Has Its Antipodes! The Antipodes, Too, Have Their Right To Exist! There Is Still Another World To Be Discovered--and More Than One! Set Sail, You Philosophers!

He Who Does Not Desire Much More From Things Than Knowledge Of Them Easily Makes Peace With His Soul.

Without Art We Would Be Nothing But Foreground And Live Entirely In The Spell Of That Perspective Which Makes What Is Closest At Hand And Most Vulgar Appear As If It Were Vast, And Reality Itself.

I Still Live, I Still Think: I Still Have To Live, For I Still Have To Think.

I Am Afraid That Old Women Are More Skeptical In Their Most Secret Heart Of Hearts Than Any Man: They Believe In The Superficiality Of Existence As In Its Essence, And All Virtue And Profundity Is To Them Merely A Veil Over This "truth," A Most Welcome Veil Over A Pudendum--and So A Matter Of Decency And Modesty, And Nothing Else.

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

Freedom Is The Will To Be Responsible For Ourselves. It Is To Preserve The Distance Which Separates Us From Other Men. To Grow More Indifferent To Hardship, To Severity, To Privation, And Even To Life Itself.

Sometimes In Our Relationship To Another Human Being The Proper Balance Of Friendship Is Restored When We Put A Few Grains Of Impropriety Onto Our Own Side Of The Scale.

Men Submit From Habit To Everything That Seeks Power.

Man Would Sooner Have The Void For His Purpose Than Be Void Of Purpose.

Verily, I Do Not Like Them, The Merciful Who Feel Blessed In Their Pity: They Are Lacking Too Much In Shame. If I Must Pity, At Least I Do Not Want It Known; And If I Do Pity, It Is Preferably From A Distance.

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

The Value Of Life Itself Cannot Be Estimated.

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?

The Aphorism, The Apothegm, In Which I Am The First Among The Germans To Be A Master, Are The Forms Of “eternity”; It Is My Ambition To Say In Ten Sentences What Everyone Else Says In A Book — What Everyone Else Does Not Say In A Book.

Where Do Your Greatest Dangers Lie?--in Pity.

In The End We Are Always Rewarded For Our Good Will, Our Patience, Fair-mindedness, And Gentleness With What Is Strange.

Sharp And Mild, Dull And Keen, Well Known And Strange, Dirty And Clean, Where Both The Fool And Wise Are Seen: All This Am I, Have Ever Been, - In Me Dove, Snake And Swine Convene!

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.

I Have Not Come To Know Atheism As A Result Of Logical Reasoning And Still Less As An Event In My Life: In Me It Is A Matter Of Instinct.

Logical Reasoning

The Noble Man Honours In Himself The Powerful One, Him Also Who Has Power Over Himself, Who Knows How To Speak And How To Keep Silence, Who Takes Pleasure In Subjecting Himself To Severity And Hardness, And Has Reverence For All That Is Severe And Hard.

But Like Infection Is The Petty Thought: It Creeps And Hides, And Wants To Be Nowhere--until The Whole Body Is Decayed And Withered By The Petty Infection... Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

You Never Exist Quite So Much As When You Are Not Thinking

The Happiness Of Man Is: I Will. The Happiness Of Woman Is: He Wills.

Talking Much About Oneself Can Also Be A Means To Conceal Oneself.

This Demand Follows From An Insight That I Was The First To Articulate: That There Are No Moral Facts.

Of All Writings I Love Only That Which Is Written With Blood. Write With Blood: And You Will Discover That Blood Is Spirit.

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.

It Is Not In Our Hands To Prevent Our Birth; But We Can Correct This Mistake - For In Some Cases It Is A Mistake.

My Time Has Not Yet Come Either; Some Are Born Posthumously.

I Love Him Who Scattereth Golden Words In Advance Of His Deeds, And Always Doeth More Than He Promiseth: For He Seeketh His Own Down-going.

Democracy Represents The Disbelief In All Great Men And In All Elite Societies: Everybody Is Everybody's Equal.

What Is Good? All That Heightens The Feeling Of Power, The Will To Power, Power Itself. What Is Bad? All That Is Born Of Weakness. What Is Happiness? The Feeling That Power Is Growing, That Resistance Is Overcome.

Religious War Has Signified The Greatest Advance Of The Masses So Far, For It Proves That The Masses Have Begun To Treat Concepts With Respect.

In Art The End Does Not Sanctify The Means: But Sacred Means Employed Here Can Sanctify The End.

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

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.

The Poet Presents His Thoughts Festively, On The Carriage Of Rhythm: Usually Because They Could Not Walk.

However Unchristian It May Seem, I Do Not Even Bear Any Ill Feeling Towards Myself.

The Best Friend Will Probably Acquire The Best Wife, Because A Good Marriage Is Founded On The Talent For Friendship.

That For Which We Find Words Is Something Already Dead In Our Hearts.

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.

Curiosity Creeps Into The Houses Of The Unfortunate And The Needy Under The Name Of Duty Or Of Pity.

The Belief In Authority Is The Source Of Conscience; Which Is Therefore Not The Voice Of God In The Heart Of Man, But The Voice Of Some Men In Man.

It Is Not Things, But Opinions About Things That Have Absolutely No Existence, Which Have So Deranged Mankind!

The Ascetic Makes A Necessity Of Virtue.

For Our Self Respect Depends Upon Our Ability To Make Requital, For Good Or For Evil.

Thus The Man Who Is Responsive To Artistic Stimuli Reacts To The Reality Of Dreams As Does The Philosopher To The Reality Of Existence; He Observes Closely, And He Enjoys His Observation: For It Is Out Of These Images That He Interprets Life, Out Of These Processes That He Trains Himself For Life.

Not The Intensity But The Duration Of High Feelings Makes High Men.

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.

Seducing One's Neighbor To A Good Opinion And Then Afterwards Believing Devoutly In This Neighbor's Opinion--who Can Match Women In This Clever Ploy?

The Apprentice And The Master Love The Master In Different Ways.

We Set No Special Value On The Possession Of A Virtue Until We Percieve That It Is Entirely Lacking In Our Adversary.

That Which Does Not Destroy, Strengthens.

Nothing On Earth Consumes A Man More Quickly Than The Passion Of Resentment.

I Notice That Autumn Is More The Season Of The Soul Than Of Nature.

He Who Lives As Children Live - Who Does Not Struggle For His Bread And Does Not Believe That His Actions Possess Any Ultimate Significance - Remains Childlike.

When Virtue Has Slept It Will Arise More Vigorous.

There Are People Who Are So Presumptuous That They Know No Other Way To Praise A Greatness That They Publicly Admire Than By Representing It As A Preliminary Stage And Bridge Leading To Themselves.

The Relatives Of A Suicide Hold It Against Him That Out Of Consideration For Their Reputation He Did Not Remain Alive.

Man Alone Resists The Direction Of Gravitation: He Constantly Wants To Fall--upwards.

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

The Germans Are Incapable Of Any Conception Of Greatness: Proof Schumann.

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

There Are Two Different Types Of People In The World, Those Who Want To Know, And Those Who Want To Believe.

Our Vanity Would Have Just That Which We Do Best Count As That Which Is Hardest For Us. The Origin Of Many A Morality.

...lust Is Only A Sweet Poison For The Weakling, But For Those Who Will With A Lion's Heart It Is The Reverently Reserved Wine Of Wines.

Who Can Attain To Anything Great If He Does Not Feel In Himself The Force And Will To Inflict Great Pain? The Ability To Suffer Is A Small Matter: In That Line, Weak Women And Even Slaves Often Attain Masterliness. But Not To Perish From Internal Distress And Doubt When One Inflicts Great Suffering And Hears The Cry Of It That Is Great, That Belongs To Greatness.

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.

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.

Extreme Positions Are Not Succeeded By Moderate Ones But By Extreme Positions Of The Opposite Kind.

The Really Historical Performance Would Talk To Ghosts.

However Modest One May Be In One's Demand For Intellectual Cleanliness, One Cannot Help Feeling, When Coming Into Contact With The New Testament, A Kind Of Inexpressible Discomfiture: For The Unchecked Impudence With Which The Least Qualified Want To Raise Their Voice On The Greatest Problems, And Even Claim To Be Judges Of Such Things, Surpasses All Measure. The Shameless Levity With Which The Most Intractable Problems (life, World, God, Purpose Of Life) Are Spoken Of, As If They Were Not Problems At All But Simply Things That These Little Bigots Knew!

The Genius-in Work And In Deed-is Necessarily A Squanderer: The Fact That He Spends Himself Constitutes His Greatness.

My Idea Of Paradise Is A Straight Line To Goal

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

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.

The Creation Of Freedom For Oneself And A Sacred "no" Even To Duty -- For That, My Brothers, The Lion Is Needed.

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.

Man Is More Ape Than Many Of The Apes.

Has There Ever Been Anything Filthier On Earth Than The Saints In The Wilderness? Around Them Was Not Only The Devil Loose Around Them- But Also The Swine.

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.

Are You Visiting Women? Do Not Forget Your Whip

I Admire The Courage And Wisdom Of Socrates In Everything He Did, Said--and Did Not Say.

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

Whom Do You Call Bad?--those Who Always Want To Induce Shame.

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!

Behind A Remarkable Scholar We Not Infrequently Find An Average Human Being, And Behind An Average Artist We Often Find A Very Remarkable Human Being.

The Most Unendurable Thing, To Be Sure, The Really Terrible Thing, Would Be A Life Without Habits, A Life Which Continually Required Improvisation.

Learning From One's Enemies Is The Best Way To Love Them, For It Puts One Into A Grateful Mood Toward Them.

I Am Zarathustra The Godless: Where Shall I Find My Equal? All Those Who Give Themselves Their Own Will And Renounce All Submission, They Are My Equals.

If We Affirm One Moment, We Thus Affirm Not Only Ourselves But All Existence. For Nothing Is Self-sufficient, Neither In Us Ourselves Nor In Things; And If Our Soul Has Trembled With Happiness And Sounded Like A Harp String Just Once, All Eternity Was Needed To Produce This One Event - And In This Single Moment Of Affirmation All Eternity Was Called Good, Redeemed, Justified, And Affirmed.

Can An Ass Be Tragic?--to Perish Under A Burden That One Can Neither Bear Nor Cast Off? The Case Of The Philosopher.

Some Mothers Need Happy Children; Others Need Unhappy Ones-otherwise They Cannot Prove Their Maternal Virtues.

Mothers Easily Become Jealous Of Their Sons' Friends When They Are Particularly Successful. As A Rule A Mother Loves Herself In Her Son More Than She Does The Son Himself.

It Is I, The Ungodly Zarathustra, Who Says:who Is More Ungodly Than I, That I May Rejoice In His Teaching?

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

It Was Christianity Which First Painted The Devil On The Worlds Walls; It Was Christianity Which First Brought Sin Into The World. Belief In The Cure Which It Offered Has Now Been Shaken To It's Deepest Roots; But Belief In The Sickness Which It Taught And Propagated Continues To Exists.

The Christian Church Has Left Nothing Untouched By Its Depravity; It Has Turned Every Value Into Worthlessness, And Every Truth Into A Lie

Was Aus Liebe Getan Wird, Geschieht Immer Jenseits Von Gut Und Böse. (what Is Done Out Of Love Always Takes Place Beyond Good And Evil.)

The Greater The Obstacle The More Glory In Overcoming It. - What Does Not Destroy Makes Me Stronger.

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

The Great Wars Of The Present Age Are The Effects Of The Study Of History.

What Is Wrong With Christianity Is That It Refrains From Doing All Those Things That Christ Commanded Should Be Done.

The Public Easily Confuses Him Who Fishes In Troubled Waters With Him Who Draws Up Water From The Depths.

Democratic Institutions Form A System Of Quarantine For Tyrannical Desires.

Democracies Have

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.

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

All Things Are Subject To Interpretation Whichever Interpretation Prevails At A Given Time Is A Function Of Power And Not Truth.

Our Faith In Others Betrays That We Would Rather Have Faith In Ourselves. Our Longing For A Friend Is Our Betrayer. And Often With Our Love We Want Merely To Overcome Envy. And Often We Attack And Make Ourselves Enemies, To Conceal That We Are Vulnerable.

Instinct. When The House Burns One Forgets Even Lunch. Yes, But One Eats It Later In The Ashes.

Clever People Are Never Credited With Their Follies: What A Deprivation Of Human Rights!

In Some Remote Corner Of The Universe, Poured Out And Glittering Among Innumerable Solar Systems, There Once Was A Star On Which Clever Animals Invented Knowledge.

I Love Him Who Chasteneth His God, Because He Loveth His God: For He Must Succumb Through The Wrath Of His God.

Stupid As A Man, Say The Women: Cowardly As A Woman, Say The Men. Stupidity In A Woman Is Unwomanly.

We Fear Our Neighbor's Hostile Mood Because We Are Afraid That This Mood Will Lead Him To Penetrate Our Secrets.

. . . An Absurd Problem Came To The Surface: 'how Could God Permit That (crucifixion Of Jesus Christ)!' . . . The Deranged Reason Of The Little Community Found Quite A Frightfully Absurd Answer: God Gave His Son For Forgiveness, As A Sacrifice . . . The Sacrifice For Guilt, And Just In Its Most Repugnant And Barbarous Form - The Sacrifice Of The Innocent For The Sins Of The Guilty! What Horrifying Heathenism!

Faith, Indeed, Has Up To The Present Not Been Able To Move Real Mountains, Although I Do Not Know Who Assumed That It Could. But It Can Put Mountains Where There Are None.

Art Depends Upon The Inexactitude Of Sight.

Every God-man Created His Own God: And There Is No Worse Enmity On Earth Than That Between Gods.

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.

A Heart Full Of Courage And Cheerfulness Needs A Little Danger From Time To Time, Or The World Gets Unbearable.

It Was The Sick And Decaying Who Despised The Body And Earth And Invented The Heavenly Realm And The Redemptive Drops Of Blood: But They Took Even These Sweet And Gloomy Poisons From Body And Earth. They Wanted To Escape Their Own Misery, And The Stars Were Too Far For Them.

Whoever Does Not Have A Good Father Should Procure One.

Here The Ways Of Men Divide. If You Wish To Strive For Peace Of Soul And Happiness, Then Believe; If You Wish To Be A Disciple Of Truth, Then Inquire.

Books For General Reading Always Smell Bad; The Odor Of Common People Hangs Around Them.

The Teacher As A Necessary Evil. Let Us Have As Few People As Possible Between The Productive Minds And The Hungry And Recipient Minds! The Middlemen Almost Unconsciously Adulterate The Food Which They Supply. It Is Because Of Teachers That So Little Is Learned, And That So Badly.

After Coming Into Contact With A Religious Man I Always Feel I Must Wash My Hands.

Among The Wealthy, Generosity Is Often Merely A Kind Of Shyness.

Why Does Man Not See Things? He Is Himself Standing In The Way: He Conceals Things.

Where Neither Love Nor Hatred Is In The Game, A Woman's Game Is Mediocre.

No Victor Believes In Chance.

To Those Human Beings Who Are Of Any Concern To Me, I Wish Suffering, Desolation, Sickness, Ill Treatment, Indignities, Profound Self-contempt, The Torture Of Self-mistrust, And The Wretchedness Of The Vanquished.

Whoever Does Not Know How To Find The Way To His Ideal Lives More Frivolously And Impudently Than The Man Without An Ideal.

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

Human Condition

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

The Will To Incessant Creation Is Vulgar, Betraying Jealousy, Envy, And Ambition. Assuming That You Are Something, There Is Really Nothing That You Need To Do-and Yet You Do A Great Deal. Above The "productive" Man There Is Still A Higher Type.

In Praise There Is More Obtrusiveness Than In Blame.

Every Fact And Every Work Exercises A Fresh Persuasion Over Every Age And Every New Species Of Man. History Always Enunciates New Truths.

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.

When Gods Die, They Always Die Many Sorts Of Death.

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

To See Others Suffer Does One Good, To Make Others Suffer Even More: This Is A Hard Saying But An Ancient, Mighty, Human, All-too-human Principle [....] Without Cruelty There Is No Festival.

The Patient. The Pine Tree Seems To Listen, The Fir Tree To Wait: And Both Without Impatience: - They Give No Thought To The Little People Beneath Them Devoured By Their Impatience And Their Curiosity.

Books And Drafts Mean Something Quite Different For Different Thinkers. One Collects In A Book The Lights He Was Able To Steal And Carry Home Swiftly Out Of The Rays Of Some Insight That Suddenly Dawned On Him, While Another Thinker Offers Us Nothing But Shadows - Images In Black And Grey Of What Had Built Up In His Soul The Day Before.

Whoever Despises Himself Nonetheless Respects Himself As One Who Despises.

Historical Refutation As The Definitive Refutation.- In Former Times, One Sought To Prove That There Is No God - Today One Indicates How The Belief That There Is A God Arose And How This Belief Acquired Its Weight And Importance: A Counter-proof That There Is No God Thereby Becomes Superfluous.- When In Former Times One Had Refuted The 'proofs Of The Existence Of God' Put Forward, There Always Remained The Doubt Whether Better Proofs Might Not Be Adduced Than Those Just Refuted: In Those Days Atheists Did Not Know How To Make A Clean Sweep.

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

Have You Heard Of That Madman Who Lit A Lantern In The Bright Morning Hours, Ran To The Market Place, And Cried Incessantly, I Seek God! I Seek God! As Many Of Those Who Do Not Believe In God Were Standing Around Just Then, He Provoked Much Laughter... Whither Is God, He Cried. I Shall Tell You. We Have Killed Him - You And I. All Of Us Are Murderers.... God Is Dead. God Remains Dead. And We Have Killed Him.

The Best Weapon Against An Enemy Is Another Enemy.

There Are Men Who Desire Power Simply For The Sake Of The Happiness It Will Bring; These Belong Chiefly To Political Parties.

We Must Remain As Close To The Flowers, The Grass, And The Butterflies As The Child Is Who Is Not Yet So Much Taller Than They Are. We Adults, On The Other Hand, Have Outgrown Them And Have To Lower Ourselves To Stoop Down To Them. It Seems To Me That The Grass Hates Us When We Confess Our Love For It. Whoever Would Partake Of All Good Things Must Understand How To Be Small At Times.

And So Do You Suppose It Must Be A Piece-work Because It Has Been Given To You (and Could Only Be Given To You) In Pieces?

Rational Thought Is Interpretation According To A Scheme Which We Cannot Escape.

So Live Your Life Of Obedience And Of War! What Matter About Long Life! What Warrior Wisheth To Be Spared!

Our Writing Equipment Takes Part In Forming Our Thoughts.

Is Man Merely A Mistake Of God's? Or God Merely A Mistake Of Man?

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