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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.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

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To Go On Vegetating

Friedrich Nietzsche

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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.

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Meaning Of Life

More From Friedrich Nietzsche

No Honey Is Sweeter Than That Of Knowledge.

Once And For All, There Are Many Things I Choose Not To Know.--wisdom Sets Limits Even To Knowledge.

Prejudice Of The Learned. - The Learned Judge Correctly That People Of All Ages Have Believed They Know What Is Good And Evil, Praise- And Blameworthy. But It Is A Prejudice Of The Learned That We Now Know Better Than Any Other Age.

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

There Is No More Dreary Or More Repulsive Creature Than The Man Who Has Evaded His Genius.

Before The Effect One Believes In Different Causes Than One Does After The Effect.

Stupidity In A Woman Is Unfeminine.

I Know My Fate. One Day My Name Will Be Tied To The Memory Of Something Monstrous - A Crisis Without Equal On Earth.... I Am No Man, I Am Dynamite!

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.

Whoever No Longer Finds Greatness In God No Longer Finds It Anywhere--he Must Either Deny It Or Create It.

I Do Not Give Alms; I Am Not Poor Enough For That.

Man, A Hybrid Of Plant And Ghost.

There Exists No More Repulsive And Desolate Creature In The World Than The Man Who Has Evaded His Genius And Who Now Looks Furtively To Left And Right, Behind Him And All About Him. ... He Is Wholly Exterior, Without Kernel, A Tattered, Painted Bag Of Clothes.

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

Belief In Form, But Disbelief In Content - That's What Makes An Aphorism Charming.

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

Whenever I Climb I Am Followed By A Dog Called 'ego'.

But Thought Is One Thing, The Deed Is Another, And The Image Of The Deed Still Another: The Wheel Of Causality Does Not Roll Between Them.

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

It Takes Physical Courage To Indulge In Wickedness. The "good" Are Too Cowardly To Do It.

There Is An Old Illusion. It Is Called Good And Evil.

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

Morality Is The Herd-instinct In The Individual.

Individual Morality

The Concepts "beyond" And "real World" Were Invented In Order To Depreciate The Only World That Exists-in Order That No Goal, No Aim Or Task Might Be Left For Our Earthly Reality.

The Earth Has Become Small, And On It Hops The Last Man, Who Makes Everything Small. His Race Can No More Be Exterminated Than The Flea Can Be. The Last Man Lives The Longest.

I Love Him Who Liveth In Order To Know, And Seeketh To Know In Order That The Superman May Hereafter Live. Thus Seeketh He His Own Down-going.

Whoever Commits To Paper What He Suffers Becomes A Melancholy Author: But He Becomes A Serious Author When He Tells Us What He Suffered And Why He Now Reposes In Joy.

When I Was Twelve Years Old I Thought Up An Odd Trinity: Namely, God The Father, God The Son, And God The Devil. My Inference Wasthat God, In Contemplating Himself, Created The Second Person Of The Godhead; But That, In Order To Be Able To Contemplate Himself, He Had To Contemplate, And Thus To Create, His Opposite.--with This I Began To Do Philosophy.

We Pay Dearly For Immortality: We Die For It More Than Once During Our Lifetimes.

But Are There Many Honest People Who Will Admit That It Is Pleasing To Give Pain?

In The Mountains, The Shortest Way Is From Peak To Peak: But For That You Must Have Long Legs

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!

We Attack Not Only To Hurt Someone, To Defeat Him, But Perhaps Also Simply To Become Conscious Of Our Own Strength.

Partial Knowledge Is More Triumphant Than Complete Knowledge; It Takes Things To Be Simpler Than They Are, And So Makes Its Theory More Popular And Convincing.

We Come To Recognize That Playfulness, As A Philosophical Stance, Can Be Very Serious Indeed; And Moreover, That It Possesses An Unfailing Capacity To Arouse Ridicule And Hostility In Those Among Us Who Crave Certainty, Reverence, And Restraint.

Belief In Truth Begins With Doubting All That Has Hitherto Been Believed To Be True.

One Who Has Given Up Any Hope Of Winning A Fight Or Has Clearly Lost It Wants His Style In Fighting To Be Admired All The More.

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!

Nothing Ever Succeeds Which Exuberant Spirits Have Not Helped To Produce.

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

Knowing Things Halfway Is A Greater Success Than Knowing Things Completely: It Takes Things To Be Simpler Than They Really Are Andso Makes Its Opinions More Easily Understandable And Persuasive.

Human, All Too Human.

[heraclitus] Concluded That Coming-to-be Itself Could Not Be Anything Evil Or Unjust.

But Tell Me: How Did Gold Get To Be The Highest Value? Because It Is Uncommon And Useless And Gleaming And Gentle In Its Brilliance; It Always Gives Itself. Only As An Image Of The Highest Virtue Did Gold Get To Be The Highest Value. The Giver's Glance Gleams Like Gold. A Golden Brilliance Concludes Peace Between The Moon And The Sun. Uncommon Is The Highest Virtue And Useless, It Is Gleaming And Gentle In Its Brilliance: A Gift-giving Virtue Is The Highest Virtue.

Different Types Of Dangerous Lives-you Have No Idea What You Are Living Through; You Rush Through Life As If You Were Drunk And Now And Then Fall Down Some Staircase. But Thanks To Your Drunkenness You Never Break A Limb; Your Muscles Are Too Relaxed And Your Brain Too Benighted For You To Find The Stones Of These Stairs As Hard As We Do.

The Abdomen Is The Reason Why Man Does Not Readily Take Himself To Be A God.

A Married Philosopher Is A Comic Character.

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

Remain Faithful To The Earth, My Brothers, With The Power Of Your Virtue. Let Your Gift-giving Love And Your Knowledge Serve The Meaning Of The Earth. Thus I Beg And Beseech You. Do Not Let Them Fly Away From Earthly Things And Beat With Their Wings Against Eternal Walls. Alas, There Has Always Been So Much Virtue That Has Flown Away. Lead Back To The Earth The Virtue That Flew Away, As I Do—back To The Body, Back To Life, That It May Give The Earth A Meaning, A Human Meaning.

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

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

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.

In All Institutions From Which The Cold Wind Of Open Criticism Is Excluded, An Innocent Corruption Begins To Grow Like A Mushroom - For Example, In Senates And Learned Societies

You May Have Enemies Whom You Hate, But Not Enemies Whom You Despise. You Must Be Proud Of Your Enemy: Then The Success Of Your Enemy Shall Be Your Success Too.

When One Is Young, One Venerates And Despises Without That Art Of Nuances Which Constitutes The Best Gain Of Life, And It Is Only Fair That One Has To Pay Dearly For Having Assaulted Men And Things In This Manner With Yes And No. Everything Is Arranged So That The Worst Of Tastes, The Taste For The Unconditional, Should Be Cruelly Fooled And Abused Until A Man Learns To Put A Little Art Into His Feelings And Rather To Risk Trying Even What Is Artificial — As The Real Artists Of Life Do.

I Am Not A Man, I Am Dynamite!

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 Author Must Keep His Mouth Shut When His Work Starts To Speak.

I Am A Forest, And A Night Of Dark Trees: But He Who Is Not Afraid Of My Darkness, Will Find Banks Full Of Roses Under My Cypresses.

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

What Do You Believe In?--in This, That The Weights Of All Things Must Be Determined Anew.

Every Word Is A Preconceived Judgment.

We Must Be Cruel As Well As Compassionate: Let Us Guard Against Becoming Poorer Than Nature Is!

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.

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

There Still Shines The Most Important Nuance By Virtue Of Which The Noble Felt Themselves To Be Men Of A Higher Rank. They Designate Themselves Simply By Their Superiority In Power (as "the Powerful," "the Masters," "the Commanders") Or By The Most Clearly Visible Signs Of This Superiority, For Example, As "the Rich," "the Possessors" (this Is The Meaning Of 'arya,' And Of Corresponding Words In Iranian And Slavic).

One Can Only Be Silent And Sit Peacefully When One Hath Arrow And Bow; Otherwise One Prateth And Quarrelleth. Let Your Peace Be A Victory!

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

At The Bottom Of All These Noble Races The Beast Of Prey, The Splendid Blond Beast, Prowling About Avidly In Search Of Spoil And Victory.

One Must Renounce The Bad Taste Of Wishing To Agree With Many People.

I Call A Lie: Wanting Not To See Something One Does See, Wanting Not To See Something As One Sees It... The Most Common Lie Is The Lie One Tells To Oneself; Lying To Others Is Relatively The Exception.

Weariness Is The Shortest Path To Equality And Fraternity-and Finally Liberty Is Bestowed By Sleep.

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.".

Sleep Is No Mean Art.

He Who Possesseth Little Is So Much The Less Possessed. Blessed Be Moderate Poverty!

If A Temple Is To Be Erected, A Temple Must Be Destroyed .

And Nobody Lies As Much As The Indignant Do.

To Regard States Of Distress In General As An Objection, As Something Which Must Be Abolished Is The Greatest Nonsense On Earth; Having The Most Disastrous Consequences, Fatally Stupid- Almost As Stupid As A Wish To Abolish Bad Weather - Out Of Pity For The Poor.

Epicurus Had Rage And Envy Of Plato's Superior Style.

People To Whom Their Daily Life Appears Too Empty And Monotonous Easily Grow Religious; This Is Comprehensible And Excusable, Only They Have No Right To Demand Religious Sentiments From Those Whose Daily Life Is Not Empty And Monotonous.

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

Man And Man's Earth Are Unexhausted And Undiscovered. Wake And Listen! Verily, The Earth Shall Yet Be A Source Of Recovery. Remain Faithful To The Earth, With The Power Of Your Virtue. Let Your Gift-giving Love And Your Knowledge Serve The Meaning Of The Earth.

To Live As I Incline, Or Not To Live At All: So Do I Wish; So Wisheth Also The Holiest. But Alas! How Have I Still - Inclination? Have I-still A Goal? A Haven Towards Which My Sail Is Set?a Good Wind? Ah, He Only Who Knoweth Whither He Saileth, Knoweth What Wind Is Good, And A Fair Wind For Him.what Still Remaineth To Me? A Heart Weary And Flippant; And Unstable Will; Fluttering Wings; A Broken Backbone.this Seeking For My Home: O Zarathustra, Dost Thou Know That This Seeking Hath Been My Home-sickening; It Eateth Me Up.

Everything The State Says Is A Lie, And Everything It Has It Has Stolen.

Man Is More Sensitive To The Contempt Of Others Than To Self-contempt.

The Danger Of Our Culture.- We Belong To A Period Of Which The Culture Is In Danger Of Being Destroyed By The Appliances Of Culture.

Dead Are All Gods: Now We Want The Overman To Live.

The Thousand Mysteries Around Us Would Not Trouble But Interest Us, If Only We Had Cheerful, Healthy Hearts.

What The Philosopher Is Seeking Is Not Truth, But Rather The Metamorphosis Of The World Into Man.

The 'kingdom Of God' Is Not Something One Waits For; It Has No Yesterday Or Tomorrow, It Does Not Come 'in A Thousand Years' It Is An Experience Within A Heart; It Is Everywhere, It Is Nowhere.

One Day Soon You Will Meet A Man, And He Will Rise Like A Phoenix From The Ashes, And It Is My Greatest Hope That He Will Not Give You Syphilis.

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.

Every Church Is A Stone On The Grave Of A God-man: It Does Not Want Him To Rise Up Again Under Any Circumstances.

It Is A Distinction To Have Many Virtues, But A Hard Lot.

I Want To Speak To The Despisers Of The Body. I Would Not Have Them Learn And Teach Differently, But Merely Say Farewell To Their Own Bodies-- And Thus Become Silent.

He Who Has Attained Intellectual Emancipation To Any Extent Cannot, For A Long Time, Regard Himself Otherwise Than As A Wanderer On The Face Of The Earth And Not Even As A Traveller Towards A Final Goal, For There Is No Such Thing.

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

The Noble Type Of Man Feels Himself To Be The Determiner Of Values, He Does Not Need To Be Approved Of, He Judges 'what Harms Me Is Harmful In Itself', He Knows Himself To Be That Which In General Accords Honour To Things, He Creates Values.

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

A Person Unlearns Arrogance When He Knows He Is Always Among Worthy Human Beings; Being Alone Fosters Presumption. Young People Are Arrogant Because They Always Associate With Their Own Peers, Those Who Are All Really Nothing But Who Would Like To Be Very Important.

All Modern Philosophizing Is Political, Policed By Governments, Churches, Academics, Custom, Fashion, And Human Cowardice, All Off Which Limit It To A Fake Learnedness.

As Long As You Still Experience The Stars As Something "above You", You Lack The Eye Of Knowledge.

Behold! I Am Weary Of My Wisdom, Like The Bee That Has Gathered Too Much Honey; I Need Hands Outstretched To Take It From Me. I Wish To Spread It And Bestow It, Until The Wise Have Once More Become Joyous In Their Folly, And The Poor Happy In Their Riches.

There Are Slavish Souls Who Carry Their Appreciation For Favors Done Them So Far That They Strangle Themselves With The Rope Of Gratitude.

Christianity Is A Metaphysics Of The Hangman.

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.

Heaping Glowing Coals On Another Person's Head Is Usually Misunderstood And Comes To Nothing Because The Other Person Knows Just As Well That He Is In The Right And Has Also Given Some Thought On His Own Part To Heaping Coals.

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

A Pair Of Powerful Spectacles Has Sometimes Sufficed To Cure A Person In Love.

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

Christianity Has The Rancor Of The Sick At Its Very Core-the Instinct Against The Healthy, Against Health. Everything That Is Well-constructed, Proud, Gallant And, Above All, Beautiful Gives Offense To Its Ears And Eyes.

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.

One Has To Pay Dearly For Immortality; One Has To Die Several Times While One Is Still Alive.

There Are Highly Gifted Spirits Who Are Always Infertile Simply Because, Owing To A Weakness In Temperament, They Are Too Impatient To Wait Out Their Pregnancy To Term.

Not To Be Cowardly When It Comes To Our Own Actions! Not To Leave Them In The Lurch!--the Sting Of Conscience Is Indecent.

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!

It Is Only When We Have Ceased To Be The Followers Of Our Followers That We Comprehend How Meaningless Followers Are.

I Absolutely Cannot See How One Can Later Make Up For Having Failed To Go To A Good School At The Proper Time. For This Is What Distinguishes The Hard School As A Good School From All Others: That Much Is Demanded; And Sternly Demanded; That The Good, Even The Exceptional, Is Demanded As The Norm; That Praise Is Rare, That Indulgence Is Nonexistent; That Blame Is Apportioned Sharply, Objectively, Without Regard For Talent Or Antecedents. What Does One Learn In A Hard School? Obeying And Commanding.

At Heart I Am A Warrior.

The Snake That Cannot Shed Its Skin Perishes.

Knowing Who You Are

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

There Is Always A Certain Noise In Applause: Even In The Applause We Give Ourselves.

They Devour Each Other And Cannot Even Digest Themselves.

Mistrust Those In Whom The Urge To Punish Is Strong.

In A Certain State It Is Indecent To Live Longer.

The Man Of The Future Who Will Redeem Us Not Only From The Hitherto Reigning Ideal But Also From That Which Was Bound To Grow Out Of It, The Great Nausea, The Will To Nothingness, Nihilism; This Bell Stroke Of Noon And Of The Great Decision That Liberates The Will Again And Restores Its Goal To The Earth And His Hope To Man; This Antichrist And Anti-nihilist; This Victor Over God And Nothingness - He Must Come One Day.

Everything About Woman Is A Riddle, And Everything About Woman Has A Single Solution: That Is, Pregnancy

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

But This People Has Deliberately Made Itself Stupid, For Nearly A Millennium: Nowhere Have The Two Great European Narcotics, Alcohol And Christianity, Been Abused More Dissolutely.

Not Infrequently, We Encounter Copies Of Important Human Beings; And Here, Too, As In The Case Of Paintings, Most People Prefer The Copies To The Originals.

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.

Our Drives Are Reducible To The Will To Power. The Will To Power Is The Ultimate Fact At Which We Arrive.

What Good Is All This Free-thinking, Modernity, And Turncoat Flexibility If At Some Gut Level You Are Still A Christian, A Catholic, And Even A Priest!

Whoever Has Really Sacrificed Anything, Knows That He Wanted And Got Something In Return.

A Little Wisdom Is Indeed Possible; But This Blessed Security Have I Found In All Things, That They Prefer--to Dance On The Feet Of Chance.

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!

There Is Not Sufficient Religion In The World Merely To Put An End To The Number Of Religions.

That A Person Cannot And Consequently Will Not Defend Himself, Does Not Yet Cast Disgrace Upon Him In Our Eyes ; But We Despise The Person Who Has Neither The Ability Nor The Good Will For Revenge Whether It Be A Man Or A Woman.

The Shortest Route Is Not The Most Direct One, But Rather The One Where The Most Favorable Winds Swell Our Sails:mthat Is The Lesson That Seafarers Teach. Not To Abide By This Lesson Is To Be Obstinate: Here, Firmness Of Character Is Tainted With Stupidity.

One Should Not Understand This Compulsion To Construct Concepts, Species, Forms, Purposes, Laws ('a World Of Identical Cases') As If They Enabled Us To Fix The Real World; But As A Compulsion To Arrange A World For Ourselves In Which Our Existence Is Made Possible:-we Thereby Create A World Which Is Calculable, Simplified, Comprehensible, Etc., For Us.

"what Is Good?" Ye Ask. To Be Brave Is Good. Let The Little Girls Say: "to Be Good Is What Is Pretty, And At The Same Time Touching."

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

Chastity Is A Virtue With Some, But With Many It Is Almost A Vice.

A Married Philosopher Belongs To Comedy.

I Fear That, With Our Current Veneration For The Natural And The Real, We Have Arrived At The Opposite Pole To All Idealism, And Have Landed In The Region Of The Waxworks.

If A Man Wishes To Become A Hero, Then The Serpent Must First Become A Dragon: Otherwise He Lacks His Proper Enemy.

With One More Talent One Frequently Stands With Greater Instability Than With One Less, As A Table Stands Better On Three Legs Than On Four.

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

Whoever Thought That He Had Understood Something Of Me Had Merely Construed Something Out Of Me, After His Own Image.

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 Man Loves Danger And Sport. That Is Why He Loves Woman, The Most Dangerous Of All Sports.

With The Strength Of His Spiritual Sight And Insight The Distance, And As It Were The Space, Around Man Continually Expands: His World Grows Deeper, Ever New Stars, Ever New Images And Enigmas Come Into View.

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

It Is The Evening That Questions Thus From Within Me.

Modern Marriage Has Lost Its Meaning--consequently It Is Being Abolished.

A Philosophical Mythology Lies Concealed In Language, Which Breaks Out Again At Every Moment, No Matter How Cautious We May Be.

Rash Actions Are Seldom Committed In Isolation. With The First Rash Action We Always Do Too Much. So We Usually Go On To Commit Asecond One--and Then We Do Too Little.

Probability But No Truth, Facility But No Freedom--it Is Owing To These Two Fruits That The Tree Of Knowledge Cannot Be Confused With The Tree Of Life.

Man Is At His Furthest Remove From The Animal As A Child, His Intellect Most Human. With His Fifteenth Year And Puberty He Comes Astep Closer To The Animal; With The Sense Of Possessions Of His Thirties (the Median Line Between Laziness And Greediness), Still Another Step. In His Sixtieth Year Of Life He Frequently Loses His Modesty As Well, Then The Septuagenarian Steps Up To Us As A Completely Unmasked Beast: One Need Only Look At The Eyes And The Teeth.

He Who Is Dissatisfied With Himself Is Continually Ready For Revenge And We Others Will Be His Victims, If Only In Having Always To Endure His Ugly Sight. For The Sight Of The Ugly Makes One Bad And Gloomy.

Love, Too, Has To Be Learned.

A Good Seat On A Horse Steals Away Your Opponent's Courage And Your Onlooker's Heart-what Reason Is There To Attack? Sit Like One Who Has Conquered?

Ah, There Are So Many Things Betwixt Heaven And Earth Of Which Only The Poets Have Dreamed!

Heaven And Earth

Forgetting: That Is A Divine Capacity. And Whoever Aspires To The Heights And Wants To Fly Must Cast Off Much That Is Heavy And Make Himself Light--i Call It A Divine Capacity For Lightness.

Is Man God's Biggest Blunder, Or Is Man's God?

We Have No Dreams At All Or Interesting Ones. We Should Learn To Be Awake The Same Way- Not At All Or In An Interesting Manner

Such A Man As Instinctively Feeds On Pure Ambrosia And Leaves Alone The Indigestible In Things.

Tolerance Is A Proof Of Distrust In One's Own Ideals.

All Truths Are Bloody Truths To Me.

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

He Who Denies Himself Much In Great Matters Will Readily Indulge Himself In Small Things.

If You Have An Enemy, Do Not Requite Him Evil With Good, For That Would Put Him To Shame. Rather Prove That He Did You Some Good.

People Buy Their Necessities In Shops And Have To Pay Dearly For Them Because They Have To Assist In Paying For What Is Also On Sale There But Only Rarely Finds Purchasers: The Luxury And Amusement Goods. So It Is That Luxury Continually Imposes A Tax On The Simple People Who Have To Do Without It.

We Ought To Face Our Destiny With Courage.

Every Word Instantly Becomes A Concept Precisely Insofar As It Is Not Supposed To Serve As A Reminder Of The Unique And Entirely Individual Original Experience To Which It Owes Its Origin; But Rather, A Word Becomes A Concept Insofar As It Simultaneously Has To Fit Countless More Or Less Similar Cases -- Which Means, Purely And Simply, Cases Which Are Never Equal And Thus Altogether Unequal.

As Far As Germany Extends It Ruins Culture.

For The Woman, The Man Is A Means: The End Is Always The Child.

He Who Bears Injustice Alone Is Terrible To Behold.

We Must Be Physicists In Order To Be Creative Since So Far Codes Of Values And Ideals Have Been Constructed In Ignorance Of Physics Or Even In Contradiction To Physics.

Profundity Of Thought Belongs To Youth, Clarity Of Thought To Old Age.

The Complete Irresponsibility Of Man For His Actions And His Nature Is The Bitterest Drop Which He Who Understands Must Swallow.

Words Of Wisdom

Is Wagner A Human Being At All? Is He Not Rather A Disease? He Contaminates Everything He Touches - He Has Made Music Sick.

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

No One Can Construct For You The Bridge Upon Which Precisely You Must Cross The Stream Of Life, No One But You Yourself Alone.

Above All, There Is No Exception To This Rule: That The Idea Of Political Superiority Always Resolves Itself Into The Idea Of Psychological Superiority.

The Antichrist, Section 7

There Are Two Things A Real Man Likes - Danger And Play; And He Likes Woman Because She Is The Most Dangerous Of Play Things.

For A Tree To Become Tall It Must Grow Tough Roots Among The Rocks.

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

... Art Approaches As A Saving Sorceress, Expert At Healing. She Alone Knows How To Turn These Nauseous Thoughts About The Horror Or Absurdity Of Existence Into Notions With Which One Can Live.

At The Beginning Of A Marriage Ask Yourself Whether This Woman Will Be Interesting To Talk To From Now Until Old Age. Everything Else In Marriage Is Transitory: Most Of The Time Is Spent In Conversation.

A Belief, However Necessary It May Be For The Preservation Of A Species, Has Nothing To Do With Truth. The Falseness Of A Judgment Is Not For Us Necessarily An Objection To A Judgment. The Question Is To What Extent It Is Life-promoting, Life-preserving, Species Preserving, Perhaps Even Species Cultivating. To Recognize Untruth As A Condition Of Life--that Certainly Means Resisting Accustomed Value Feelings In A Dangerous Way; And A Philosophy That Risks This Would By That Token Alone Place Itself Beyond Good And Evil.

Faith: Not Wanting To Know What Is True.

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.

Modern Science Has As Its Object As Little Pain As Possible, As Long A Life As Possible - Hence A Sort Of Eternal Blessedness, But Of A Very Limited Kind In Comparison With The Promises Of Religion.

Good Deeds Shun The Light As Anxiously As Evil Deeds: The Latter Fear That Disclosure Will Bring On Pain (as Punishment), While The Former Fear That Disclosure Will Take Away Pleasure (that Pure Pleasure, That Pleasure Per Se, Which Immediately Ceases Once The Vanity's Satisfaction Is Added).

No Artist Tolerates Reality.

Since Men Do Not Really Respect Anything Unless It Was Established Long Ago And Has Developed Slowly Over Time, Those Who Want Tokeep On Living After Their Death Must Take Worry Not Only About Their Future Generations But Even More About Their Past: That Is Why Tyrants Of All Kinds (including Tyrannical Artists And Politicians) Like To Do Violence To History, So That It Will Appear As A Preparation And Stepladder To Themselves.

When Horror Is Associated With What Is Harmful, Evil Results, When Disgust Does, Badness.

As Regards The Celebrated Struggle For Life, It Seems To Me For The Present To Have Been Rather Asserted Than Proved. It Does Occur, But As The Exception; The General Aspect Of Life Is Not Hunger And Distress, But Rather Wealth, Luxury, Even Absurd Prodigality -- Where There Is A Struggle It Is A Struggle For Power.

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