Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.

There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.

I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.

There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.

Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.

The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.

Nobody is more inferior than those who insist on being equal.

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.

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.

The Great Man... is colder, harder, less hesitating, and without fear of 'opinion'; he lacks the virtues that accompany respect and 'respectability,' and altogether everything that is the 'virtue of the herd.' If he cannot lead, he goes alone... He knows he is incommunicable: he finds it tasteless to be familiar... When not speaking to himself, he wears a mask. There is a solitude within him that is inaccessible to praise or blame.

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Love your enemies because they bring out the best in you.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.

Do you want to have an easy life? Then always stay with the herd and lose yourself in the herd.

you must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes?

The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.

The world is beautiful, but has a disease called man.

Call me whatever you like; I am who I must be.

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.

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

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.

I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.

When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is usually something wrong with her sexuality.

In loneliness, the lonely one eats himself; in a crowd, the many eat him. Now choose.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

We have art so that we shall not die of reality.

Everything in the world displeases me: but, above all, my displeasure in everything displeases me.

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

I and me are always too deeply in conversation.

One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.

I am alone again and I want to be so; alone with the pure sky and open sea.

Everything matters. Nothing's important.

One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power.

The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell.

There's no defense against stupidity.

He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures.

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's.

Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.

The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

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.