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What, If Some Day Or Night A Demon Were To Steal After You Into Your Loneliest Loneliness And Say To You: 'this Life As You Now Live It And Have Lived It, You Will Have To Live Once More And Innumerable Times More' ... Would You Not Throw Yourself Down And Gnash Your Teeth And Curse The Demon Who Spoke Thus? Or Have You Once Experienced A Tremendous Moment When You Would Have Answered Him: 'you Are A God And Never Have I Heard Anything More Divine.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

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What, If Some Day

Friedrich Nietzsche

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What, If Some Day Or Night A Demon Were To Steal After You Into Your Loneliest Loneliness And Say To You: 'this Life As You Now Live It And Have Lived It, You Will Have To Live Once More And Innumerable Times More' ... Would You Not Throw Yourself Down And Gnash Your Teeth And Curse The Demon Who Spoke Thus? Or Have You Once Experienced A Tremendous Moment When You Would Have Answered Him: 'you Are A God And Never Have I Heard Anything More Divine.

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What Europe Owes To The Jews? - Many Things, Good And Bad, And Above All One Thing Of The Nature Both Of The Best And The Worst: The Grand Style In Morality, The Fearfulness And Majesty Of Infinite Demands, Of Infinite Significations, The Whole Romanticism And Sublimity Of Moral Questionableness - And Consequently Just The Most Attractive, Ensnaring, And Exquisite Element In Those Iridescences And Allurements To Life, In The Aftersheen Of Which The Sky Of Our European Culture, Its Evening Sky, Now Glows - Perhaps Glows Out.

There Is An Innocence In Admiration; It Is Found In Those To Whom It Has Never Yet Occurred That They, Too, Might Be Admired Some Day.

Vanity Is The Fear Of Appearing Original: It Is Thus A Lack Of Pride, But Not Necessarily A Lack Of Originality.

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!

Those Who Are Failures From The Start, Downtrodden, Crushed -- It Is They, The Weakest, Who Must Undermine Life Among Men, Who Call Into Question And Poison Most Dangerously Our Trust In Life, In Man, And In Ourselves.

What Is The Task Of Higher Education? To Make A Man Into A Machine. What Are The Means Employed? He Is Taught How To Suffer Being Bored.

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

Nothing Seems To Me To Be Rarer Today Then Genuine Hypocrisy. I Greatly Suspect That This Plant Finds The Mild Atmosphere Of Our Culture Unendurable. Hypocrisy Has Its Place In The Ages Of Strong Belief: In Which Even When One Is Compelled To Exhibit A Different Belief One Does Not Abandon The Belief One Already Has.

Light For Some Time To Come Will Have To Be Called Darkness.

I Could Dispense With Nothing When I Created The Superman. His Seed Still Carries All Your Evil And Falsehood, Your Lies And Yourignorance.

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.

The Destiny Of Mankind Is Arranged For Happy Moments Every Life Has Such But Not For Happy Times.

Priests ... These Turkey-cocks Of God.

I Devote Myself To What I Love The Most, And For This Very Reason I Hesitate To Designate It With Lofty Words: I Do Not Want To Risk Believing That It Is A Sublime Compulsion, A Law, Which I Obey: I Love What I Love The Most Too Much To Wish To Appear To It As One Compelled.

We Talk So Abstractly About Poetry Because All Of Us Are Usually Bad Poets.

I Am Interested Only In The Relations Of A People To The Rearing Of The Individual Man, And Among The Greeks The Conditions Were Unusually Favourable For The Development Of The Individual; Not By Any Means Owing To The Goodness Of The People, But Because Of The Struggles Of Their Evil Instincts.with The Help Of Favourable Measures Great Individuals Might Be Reared Who Would Be Both Different From And Higher Than Those Who Heretofore Have Owed Their Existence To Mere Chance. Here We May Still Be Hopeful: In The Rearing Of Exceptional Men.

Every Achievement, Every Step Forward In Knowledge, Is The Consequence Of Courage, Of Toughness Towards Oneself, Of Sincerity To Oneself

When You Look Into An Abyss, The Abyss Also Looks Into You.

We, However, Want To Become Those We Are--human Beings Who Are New, Unique, Incomparable, Who Give Themselves Laws, Who Create Themselves. To That End We Must Become The Best Learners And Discoverers Of Everything That Is Lawful And Necessary In The World: We Must Become Physicists In Order To Be Able To Be Creators In This Sense--while Hitherto All Valuations And Ideals Have Been Based On Ignorance Of Physics Or Were Constructed So As To Contradict It. Therefore: Long Live Physics! And Even More So That Which Compels Us To Turn To Physics--our Honesty!

Scholars Who Become Politicians Are Usually Assigned The Comic Role Of Having To Be The Good Conscience Of State Policy.

Has A Woman Who Knew She Was Well-dressed Ever Caught A Cold?

Free Will Appears Unfettered, Deliberate; It Is Boundlessly Free, Wandering, The Spirit. But Fate Is A Necessity; Unless We Believe That World History Is A Dream-error, The Unspeakable Sorrows Of Mankind Fantasies, And That We Ourselves Are But The Toys Of Our Fantasies. Fate Is The Boundless Force Of Opposition Against Free Will. Free Will Without Fate Is Just As Unthinkable As Spirit Without Reality, Good Without Evil. Only Antithesis Creates The Quality.

Men Subsequently Put Whatever Is Newly Learned Or Experienced To Use As A Plowshare, Perhaps Even As A Weapon: But Women Immediately Include It Among Their Ornaments.

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.

To Explore The Whole Sphere Of The Modern Soul, To Have Sat In Every Nook- My Ambition, My Torture, And My Happiness

Truth As Circe. - Error Has Transformed Animals Into Men; Is Truth Perhaps Capable Of Changing Man Back Into An Animal?

Rather Perish Than Hate And Fear, And Twice Rather Perish Than Make Oneself Hated And Feared — This Must Some Day Become The Highest Maxim For Every Single Commonwealth.

Life Is An Instinct For Growth, For Survival, For The Accumulation Of Forces, For Power.

I Overcame Myself, The Sufferer; I Carried My Own Ashes To The Mountains; I Invented A Brighter Flame For Myself.

The Lack Of Closeness Among Friends Is A Fault That Cannot Be Reprimanded Without Becoming Incurable.

Every Talent Must Unfold Itself In Fighting.

One Must Have All The Virtues To Sleep Well. Shall I Bear False Witness? Shall I Commit Adultery? Shall I Covet My Neighbor's Maid? All That Would Go Ill With Good Sleep.

We Do Not Belong To Those Who Only Get Their Thought From Books, Or At The Prompting Of Books, -- It Is Our Custom To Think In The Open Air, Walking, Leaping, Climbing, Or Dancing On Lonesome Mountains By Preference, Or Close To The Sea, Where Even The Paths Become Thoughtful.

In War Personal Revenge Maintains Its Silence.

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

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

The Most Spiritual Human Beings, Assuming They Are The Most Courageous, Also Experience By Far The Most Painful Tragedies: But It Is Precisely For This Reason That They Honor Life, Because It Brings Against Them Its Most Formidable Weapons.

You May Lie With Your Mouth, But With The Mouth You Make As You Do So You None The Less Tell The Truth.

What Convinces Is Not Necessarily True-it Is Merely Convincing: A Note For Asses.

Your Enemy Shall Ye Seek; Your War Shall Ye Wage, And For The Sake Of Your Thoughts! And If Your Thoughts Succumb, Your Uprightness Shall Still Shout Triumph Thereby!

That Is An Artist As I Would Have An Artist Be, Modest In His Needs: He Really Wants Only Two Things, His Bread And His Art--panemet Circen.

The Perfect Woman Is A Higher Type Of Humanity Than The Perfect Man, And Also Something Much Rarer. The Natural History Of Animals Furnishes Grounds In Support Of This Theory.

I Want To Teach Men The Sense Of Their Existence, Which Is The Superman, The Lightning Out Of The Dark Cloud Man.

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

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

The Highest Type Of Free Men Should Be Sought Where The Highest Resistance Is Constantly Overcome: Five Steps From Tyranny, Close To The Threshold Of The Danger Of Servitude.

Everywhere Resoundeth The Voices Of Those Who Preach Death; And The Earth Is Full Of Those To Whom Death Hath To Be Preached.

In The Stream.- Mighty Waters Draw Much Stone And Rubble Along With Them; Mighty Spirits Many Stupid And Bewildered Heads.

The Higher Its Type, The More Rarely A Thing Succeeds.

Phlegmatic Natures Can Be Inspired To Enthusiasm Only By Being Made Into Fanatics.

A Few Hours' Mountain Climbing Make Of A Rogue And A Saint Two Fairly Equal Creatures. Tiredness Is The Shortest Path To Equality And Fraternity - And Sleep Finally Adds To Them Liberty.

I Consist Of Body And Soul - In The Worlds Of A Child. And Why Shouldn't We Speak Like Children? But The Enlightened, The Knowledgealbe Would Say: I Am Body Through And Through, Nothing More; And The Soul Is Just A Word For Something On The Body.

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

Nobody Can Build The Bridge For You To Walk Across The River Of Life, No One But You Yourself Alone. There Are, To Be Sure, Countless Paths And Bridges And Demi-gods Which Would Carry You Across This River; But Only At The Cost Of Yourself; You Would Pawn Yourself And Lose. There Is In The World Only One Way, On Which Nobody Can Go, Except You: Where Does It Lead? Do Not Ask, Go Along With It.

In Architecture The Pride Of Man, His Triumph Over Gravitation, His Will To Power, Assume A Visible Form. Architecture Is A Sort Of Oratory Of Power By Means Of Forms.

A Declaration Of War On The Masses By Higher Men Is Needed! ... Everything That Makes Soft And Effeminate, That Serves The End Of The People Or The Feminine, Works In Favor Of Universal Suffrage, I.e. The Domination Of The Inferior Men. But We Should Take Reprisal And Bring This Whole Affair To Light And The Bar Of Judgment.

Marriage: That I Call The Will Of Two To Create The One Who Is More Than Those Who Created It.

Your Only Problem, Perhaps, Is That You Scream Without Letting Yourself Cry.

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

Words Of Wisdom

As Soon As A Religion Comes To Dominate It Has As Its Opponents All Those Who Would Have Been Its First Disciples.

Men After Death ... Are Understood Worse Than Men Of The Moment, But Heard Better.

The States In Which We Infuse A Transfiguration And A Fullness Into Things And Poetize About Them Until They Reflect Back Our Fullness And Joy In Life... Three Elements Principally: Sexuality, Intoxication And Cruelty All Belonging To The Oldest Festal Joys.

To The Mean All Becomes Mean.

I Love Him Whose Soul Is Lavish, Who Wanteth No Thanks And Doth Not Give Back: For He Always Bestoweth, And Desireth Not To Keep For Himself.

Whoever Regards Human Beings As A Herd And Flees Them As Swiftly As He Can Will No Doubt Be Overtaken By Them And Impaled On Theirhorns.

Spirit Is The Life That Itself Cuts Into Life: With Its Own Torment It Increases Its Own Knowledge. Did You Already Know That?

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.

You Are Treading The Path To Your Greatness: No One Shall Follow You Here! Your Passage Has Effaced The Path Behind You, And Above That Path Stands Written: Impossibility.

Our Writing Equipment Takes Part In Forming Our Thoughts.

Everyone Needs A Sense Of Shame, But No One Needs To Feel Ashamed.

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.

My Formula For Greatness In A Human Being Is Amor Fati: That One Wants Nothing To Be Other Than It Is, Not In The Future, Not In The Past, Not In All Eternity.

Is It Better To Out-monster The Monster Or To Be Quietly Devoured?

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

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.

One Pays Dearly For Being Immortal: One Must Die Many Times During His Life.

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.

You Know These Things As Thoughts, But Your Thoughts Are Not Your Experiences, They Are An Echo And After-effect Of Your Experiences: As When Your Room Trembles Whe Na Carriage Goes Past. I However Am Sitting In The Carriage, And Often I Am The Carriage Itself. Ina Man Who Thinks Like This, The Dichotomy Between Thinking And Feeling, Intellect And Passion, Has Really Disappeared. He Feels His Thoughts. He Can Fall In Love With An Idea. An Idea Can Make Him Ill.

The Snake Which Cannot Cast Its Skin Has To Die.

When On A Sunday Morning We Hear The Old Bells Ring Out, We Ask Ourselves, "is It Possible! This Is Done On Account Of A Jew Crucified Two Thousand Years Ago Who Said He Was The Son Of God. The Proof Of Such An Assertion Is Wanting".

That Which Does Not Destroy, Strengthens.

Woman Learns How To Hate In Proportion As She Forgets How To Charm.

A High Civilization Is A Pyramid: It Can Stand Only On A Broad Base; Its Primary Prerequisite Is A Strong And Soundly Consolidated Mediocrity.

Many A Man Fails As An Original Thinker Simply Because His Memory It Too Good.

He Who Humbles Himself Wants To Be Exalted.

As Soon As We Climb Higher Than Those Who Had At One Time Admired Us, We Appear To Them As Though We Have Sunken And Fallen Down:for, In Any Event, They Had At One Time Supposed That They Were With Us (even If It Were Through Us) On The Heights.

Are You Genuine? Or Just An Actor? A Representative? Or What It Is That Is Represented?-in The End, You Might Merely Be Someone Mimicking An Actor ... Second Question Of Conscience.

I Love Him Whose Soul Is Deep Even In The Wounding

Even The Most Beautiful Scenery Is No Longer Assured Of Our Love After We Have Lived In It For Three Months, And Some Distant Coast Attracts Our Avarice: Possessions Are Generally Diminished By Possession.

I Would Only Believe In A God Who Could Dance. And When I Saw My Devil I Found Him Serious, Thorough, Profound, And Solemn: It Was The Spirit Of Gravity—through Him All Things Fall. Not By Wrath Does One Kill But By Laughter. Come, Let Us Kill The Spirit Of Gravity!

The Most Dangerous Follower Is The One Whose Defection Would Destroy The Whole Party: Hence, The Best Follower.

Without Meaning, Without Substance, Without Aim: A Mere 'public Opinion'.

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.

The Greatest Events-they Are Not Our Loudest But Our Stillest Hours.

The Code Of Manu Differs From The Bible. By Means Of It The Nobles, The Philosophers, And The Warriors Keep The Whip Hand Over The Majority. It Is Full Of Noble Valuations; It Shows A Feeling Of Perfection, An Acceptance Of Life, And Triumphant Feeling Toward Self And Life.

Words Are Acoustical Signs For Concepts; Concepts, However, Are More Or Less Definite Image Signs For Often Recurring And Associated Sensations, For Groups Of Sensations. To Understand One Another, It Is Not Enough That One Use The Same Words; One Also Has To Use The Same Words For The Same Species Of Inner Experiences; In The End One Has To Have One's Experiences In Common.

Nothing Has Been Purchased More Dearly Than The Little Bit Of Reason And Sense Of Freedom Which Now Constitutes Our Pride.

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.

As Soon As We Are Shown The Existence Of Something Old In A New Thing, We Are Pacified.

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

I Have Not The Capability To Give You My Loyalty, Nor Do I Have The Vanity To Appear As If I Did.

I Might Believe In The Redeemer If His Followers Looked More Redeemed.

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.

Time, Space, And Causality Are Only Metaphors Of Knowledge, With Which We Explain Things To Ourselves.

When You Stare Into An Abyss For A Long Time, The Abyss Also Stares Into You.

What, If Some Day Or Night A Demon Were To Steal After You Into Your Loneliest Loneliness And Say To You: 'this Life As You Now Live It And Have Lived It, You Will Have To Live Once More And Innumerable Times More' ... Would You Not Throw Yourself Down And Gnash Your Teeth And Curse The Demon Who Spoke Thus? Or Have You Once Experienced A Tremendous Moment When You Would Have Answered Him: 'you Are A God And Never Have I Heard Anything More Divine.

God Is A Gross Answer, An Indelicacy Against Us Thinkers- At Bottom Merely A Gross Prohibition For Us: You Shall Not Think!

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

Human, All Too Human.

There Are More Idols Than Realities In The World: That Is My "evil Eye" For This World, Which Is Also My "evil Ear".

No Honey Is Sweeter Than That Of Knowledge.

Love Your Enemies Because They Bring Out The Best In You.

Love Your Enemies

Love Brings To Light The Lofty And Hidden Characteristics Of The Lover--what Is Rare And Exceptional In Him: To That Extent It Caneasily Be Deceptive With Respect To What Is Normal In Him.

Nihilism: Any Aim Is Lacking, Any Answer To The Question "why" Is Lacking. What Does Nihilism Mean?--that The Supreme Values Devaluate Themselves.

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.

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.

Morality Is Neither Rational Nor Absolute Nor Natural. World Has Known Many Moral Systems, Each Of Which Advances Claims Universality; All Moral Systems Are Therefore Particular, Serving A Specific Purpose For Their Propagators Or Creators, And Enforcing A Certain Regime That Disciplines Human Beings For Social Life By Narrowing Our Perspectives And Limiting Our Horizons.

This Tremendous Event Is Still On Its Way, Still Wandering; It Has Not Yet Reached The Ears Of Men. Lightning And Thunder Require Time; The Light On The Stars Requires Time; Deeds Though Done, Still Require Time To Be Seen And Heard. This Deed Is Still More Distant From Them Than The Most Distant Stars - And Yet They Have Done It Themselves.

The Noble Soul Reveres Itself

He Who Would Learn To Fly One Day Must First Learn To Stand And Walk And Run And Climb And Dance; One Cannot Fly Into Flying.

Time Flies Apace-we Would Fain Believe That Everything Flies Forward With It.

The Living Is Merely A Type Of What Is Dead, And A Very Rare Type.

Watch Them Clamber, These Swift Monkeys! They Clamber Over One Another And Thus Drag One Another Into The Mud And The Depth. They All Want To Get To The Throne: That Is Their Madness — As If Happiness Sat On The Throne. Often, Mud Sits On The Throne — And Often The Throne Also On Mud. Mad They All Appear To Me, Clambering Monkeys And Overardent. Foul Smells Their Idol, The Cold Monster: Foul, They Smell To Me Altogether, These Idolators.

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

When One Thinks Profusely And Cleverly, Not Only His Face But His Body Too Takes On A Clever Appearance.

Love Forgives The Lover Even His Lust.

The Less Men Are Fettered By Tradition, The Greater Becomes The Inward Activity Of Their Motives, And Greater Again In Proportion To Their Outer Restlessness.

I Understand By 'freedom Of Spirit' Something Quite Definite - The Unconditional Will To Say No, Where It Is Dangerous To Say No.

And When Your Soul Becometh Great, Then Doth It Become Haughty, And In Your Sublimity There Is Wickedness.

Marriages That Made Out Of Love (so-called "love-matches") Have Error As Their Father And Misery (necessity) As Their Mother.

God Is A Too Palpably Clumsy Answer; An Answer Which Shows A Lack Of Delicacy Towards Us Thinkers-fundamentally, Even A Crude Prohibition To Us: You Shall Not Think!

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

What Else Is Love But Understanding And Rejoicing In The Fact That Another Person Lives Acts And Experiences Otherwise Than We Do?

Scholarship Has The Same Relationship To Wisdom As Righteousness Has To Holiness: It Is Cold And Dry, It Is Loveless And Knows Nodeep Feelings Of Inadequacy Or Longing.

The Charm Of The Platonic Mode Of Thought ... Consisted Precisely In The Resistance To The Obvious Evidence Of The Senses.

Like The Creatures Of The Forest And The Sea, I Love To Lose Myself For A While.

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.

God Remains Dead. And We Have Killed Him. Yet His Shadow Still Looms. How Shall We Comfort Ourselves, The Murderers Of All Murderers?

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.

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.

How Poisonous, How Crafty, How Bad, Does Every Long War Make One, Which Cannot Be Waged Openly By Means Of Force!

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

After Buddha Was Dead, His Shadow Was Still Shown For Centuries In A Cave.

It Is Our Taste That Decides Against Christianity Now, No Longer Our Reasons.

Ye Shall Only Have Foes To Be Hated; But Not Foes To Be Despised: Ye Must Be Proud Of Your Foes.

One Does Not Kill By Anger But By Laughter.

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.

The Word 'christianity' Is Already A Misunderstanding - In Reality There Has Been Only One Christian, And He Died On The Cross.

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 Disappointed One Speaks. I Searched For Great Human Beings; I Always Found Only The Apes Of Their Ideals.

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

A Book Calls For Pen, Ink, And A Writing Desk; Today The Rule Is That Pen, Ink, And A Writing Desk Call For A Book.

I No Longer Want To Walk On Worn Soles.

There Is More Wisdom In Your Body Than In Your Deepest Philosophy.

If You Stare Into The Abyss Long Enough The Abyss Stares Back At You.

Whoever Possesses The Will To Suffering Within Himself Has A Different Attitude Towards Cruelty: He Does Not Regard It As Inherently Harmful And Bad.

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

It Is Very Noble Hypocrisy Not To Talk Of One's Self.

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

A Light Has Dawned For Me: I Need Companions, Living Ones, Not Dead Companions And Corpses Which I Carry With Me Wherever I Wish. But I Need Living Companions Who Follow Me Because They Want To Follow Themselves- And Who Want To Go Where I Want To Go.

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.

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.

Love Is Blind, Friends Close Their Eyes

God Is Dead, But Considering The State The Species Man Is In, There Will Perhaps Be Caves, For Ages Yet, In Which His Shadow Will Be Shown.

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.

In Short, Then, The Religious Cult Is Based Upon The Representations Of Sorcery Between Man And Man, And The Sorcerer Is Older Than The Priest.

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.

The Rights Which A Man Arrogates To Himself Are Relative To The Duties Which He Sets Himself, And To The Tasks Which He Feels Capable Of Performing.

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

We Seldom Break A Leg As Long As We Are Climbing Wearily Upwards In Our Lives, Instead We Do It When We Start Going Easy On Ourselves And Choosing The Comfortable Paths.

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.

In Every Party There Is One Person Who, Through His Dotingly Credulous Enunciation Of Party Principles, Incites The Other Members To Defection.

Immature Is The Love Of The Youth, And Immature His Hatred Of Man And Earth. His Mind And The Wings Of His Spirit Are Still Tied Down And Heavy.

Everything Becomes And Recurs Eternally - Escape Is Impossible!

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

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

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

We Believe That We Know Something About The Things Themselves When We Speak Of Trees, Colors, Snow, And Flowers; And Yet We Possess Nothing But Metaphors For Things - Metaphors Which Correspond In No Way To The Original Entities.

The Courage Of All One Really Knows Comes But Late In Life.

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.

Faith Means The Will To Avoid Knowing What Is True.

But Eternal Liveliness Is What Counts: What Does "eternal Life" Matter, Or Life At All?

Remain True To The Earth.

It Is Thus Only This Personal Feeling Of Misery That We Get Rid Of By Acts Of Pity.

When A Man Is Ill His Very Goodness Is Sickly.

Art Is The Highest Task And The Proper Metaphysical Activity Of This Life.

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

Without The Errors Which Lie In The Assumption Of Morality, Man Would Have Remained An Animal.

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.

The Surest Aid In Combating The Male's Disease Of Self-contempt Is To Be Loved By A Clever Woman.

When Thou Goest To Woman, Take Thy Whip.

Those With Very Loud Voices In Their Throats Are Nearly Incapable Of Thinking Subtle Thoughts.

I Call Christianity The One Great Curse, The One Great Intrinsic Depravity, And The One Great Instinct Of Revenge, For Which No Means Are Venomous Enough, Or Secret, Subterranean And Small Enough - I Call It The One Immortal Blemish On The Human Race.

Become Who You Are. Make What Only You Can Make.

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.

Some People Do Not Become Thinkers Simply Because Their Memories Are Too Good.

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.)

If One Uses One's Intellect To Become Master Over The Unlimited Emotions, It May Produce A Sorry And Diversionary Effect Upon The Intellect.

When One Gives Up The Christian Faith, One Pulls The Right To Christian Morality Out From Under One's Feet. This Morality Is By No Means Self-evident. Christianity Is A System, A Whole View Of Things Thought Out Together. By Breaking One Main Concept Out Of It, The Faith In God, One Breaks The Whole. It Stands Or Falls With Faith In God.

The Slow Arrow Of Beauty. The Noblest Kind Of Beauty Is That Which Does Not Transport Us Suddenly, Which Does Not Make Stormy And Intoxicating Impressions Such A Kind Easily Arouses Disgust But That Which Slowly Filters Into Our Minds.

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Lee H. Hamilton

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