Friedrich Nietzsche

“Your only problem, perhaps, is that you scream without letting yourself cry.”

“To what end the ‘world’ exists, to what end ‘man­kind’ exists, ought not to concern us at all for the moment except as objects of humour: for the presumptuousness of the little human worm is the funniest thing at present on the world’s stage; on the other hand, do ask yourself why you, the individual, exist, and if you can get no other answer try for once to justify the meaning of your existence as it were a posteriori by setting before yourself an aim, a goal, a ‘to this end’, an exalted and noble ‘to this end’ . Perish in pursuit of this and only this - I know of no better aim of life than that of perishing, animae magnae prodigus, in pursuit of the great and the impossible. If, on the other hand, the doctrines of sovereign becoming, of the fluidity of all concepts, types and species, of the lack of any cardinal distinction between man and animal - doctrines which I consider true but deadly - are thrust upon the people for another generation with the rage for instruction that has by now become normal, no one should be surprised if the people perishes of petty egoism, ossification and greed, falls apart and ceases to be a people; in its place sys­tems of individualist egoism, brotherhoods for the rapacious exploitation of the non-brothers, and similar creations of utilitarian vulgarity may perhaps appear in the arena of the future. To prepare the way for these creations all one has to do is to go on writing history from the standpoint of the masses and seeking to derive the laws which govern it from the needs of these masses, that is to say from the laws which move the lowest mud- and clay-strata of society. The masses seem to me to deserve notice in three respects only: first as faded copies of great men produced on poor paper with worn-out plates, then as a force of resistance to great men, finally as instruments in the hands of great men; for the rest, let the Devil and statistics take them!”

“New struggles. -- After Buddha was dead, they still showed his shadow in a cave for centuries -- a colossal, horrible shadow. God is dead, but given the way people are, there may still be caves for millennia in which his shadow is displayed. -- And we -- we must still defeat his shadow as well!”

“But an essentially mechanical world would be an essentially meaningless world! Suppose that one assessed the value of a piece of music according to how much of it could be counted, calculated, put into formulas; how absurd such a 'scientific' assessment of music would be! What would one have comprehended, understood, known about it? Nothing, absolutely nothing of what is really 'music' in it!”

“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.”

“Ainda agora o mundo é livre para as almas grandes. Para os que vivem solitários ou aos pares ainda há muitos sítios vagos onde se aspira a fragrância dos mares silenciosos.”

“Benditos sean los olvidadizos pues superan, incluso, sus propios errores”

“The person who fights monsters should make sure that in the process, he does not become a monster himself. Because when you stare down at an abyss, the abyss stares back at you.”

“Under the magic of the Dionysian, not only does the bond between man and man lock itself in place once more, but also nature itself, no matter how alienated, hostile, or subjugated, rejoices again in her festival of reconciliation with her prodigal son, man. The earth freely offers up her gifts, and the beasts of prey from the rocks and the desert approach in peace. The wagon of Dionysus is covered with flowers and wreaths; under his yolk stride panthers and tigers.”

“Agora compreendo o que se procurava primeiro que tudo em nossos dias, quando se procurava mestres de virtude. O que se procurava era um bom sono, e para isso virtudes coroadas de dormideiras. Para todos estes sábios catedráticos, tão ponderados, a sabedoria era dormir sem sonhar: não conheciam melhor sentido da vida. [...] Bem-aventurados tais dormentes porque não tardarão a dormir de todo.”

“They dislike, therefore, to hear of 'contempt' of themselves. So I will appeal to their pride.”

“Verhasst ist mir das Folgen und das Führen.Gehorchen? Nein! Und aber nein -Regieren!Wer sich nicht schrecklich ist, machtNiemand Schrecken:Und nur wer Schrecken macht, kann Andre führen.Verhasst ist mir's schon, selber mich zuführen!Ich liebe es, gleich Wald- undMeeresthieren,Mich für ein gutes Weilchen zu verlieren,In holder Irrniss grüblerisch zu hocken, Von ferne her mich endlich heimzulocken,Mich selber zu mir selber - zu verführen.”

“But I suffer and have suffered with them: prisoners are they unto me, and stigmatised ones. He whom they call Saviour put them in fetters:— In fetters of false values and fatuous words! Oh, that some one would save them from their Saviour!”

“Amo os que não procuram por detrás das estrelas uma razão para morrer e oferecer-se em sacrifício, mas se sacrificam pela terra, para que a terra pertença um dia ao Super-homem.”

“Now and again an echo of Chopin’s music rings in my ears, and this much you absorb me that, at such moments I always think of you and lose myself in meditating about possibilities.”

“We no longer have a sufficiently high estimate of ourselves when we communicate. Our true experiences are not garrulous. They could not communicate themselves if they wanted to: they lack words. We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for. In all talking there lies a grain of contempt. Speech, it seems, was devised only for the average medium, communicable. The speaker has already vulgarized himself by speaking.”

“The most common sort of lie is that by which a man deceives himself: the deception of others is a relatively rare offense.”

“For your Bildung you should choose the most difficult and splendid problem, but as subject for a dissertation choose no more than a very limited and remote corner.”

“Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.”

“Tüm zamanlarda olduğu gibi, tüm insanlar şimdi köleler ve özgürler kategorilerine ayrılmaktadır; zira gününün üçte ikisini kendisine ayırmayan herhangi biri, kim olursa olsun, ister devlet adamı, ister iş adamı, ister resmi görevli, ister bilgin olsun, esasen bir köledir.”

“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 Church today is more likely to alienate than to seduce...”

“The state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen.”

“The great periods of our life occur when we gain the courage to rechristen what is bad about us as what is best.”

“All concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated elude definition; only that which has no history is definable.”

“To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion of what one is... The whole surface of consciousness - for consciousness -is- a surface - must be kept clear of all great imperatives. Beware even of every great word, every great pose! So many dangers that the instinct comes too soon to "understand itself" --.Meanwhile, the organizing idea that is destined to rule keeps growing deep down - it begins to command, slowly it leads us back from side roads and wrong roads; it prepares single qualities and fitnesses that will one day prove to be indispensable as a means toward a whole - one by one, it trains all subservient capacities before giving any hint of the dominant task, "goal," "aim," or "meaning.”

“Düşünceler, duygularımızın gölgeleridir - her zaman daha karanlık, daha boş ve daha basit.”

“Egoism is the law of perspective applied to feelings: what is closest appears large and weighty, and as one moves farther away size and weight decrease.”

“What is life? Life - that is: continually shedding something that wants to die. Life - that is: being cruel and inexorable against everything about us that is growing old and weak -and not only about us. Life - that is, then: being without reverence for those who are dying, who are wretched, who are ancient? Constantly being a murderer? -And yet old Moses said: "Thou shalt not kill.”

“I attack only things that are triumphant — if necessary, I wait until they become triumphant.”

“I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus, and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint.”

“The text has disappeared under the interpretation.”

“[339] Vita femina. To see the ultimate beauties in a work-all knowledge and good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for the veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun to shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place to see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from its heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile, so as to have a hold and remain master of itself. All these, however, are so rarely united at the same time that I am inclined to believe that the highest summit of all that is good, be it work, deed, man, or nature, has hitherto remained for most people, and even for the best, as something concealed and shrouded-that, however, which unveils itself to us, unveils itself to us but once. The Greeks indeed prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things. But perhaps this is the greatest charm of life: it puts a gold- embroidered veil of lovely potentialities over itself, promising, resisting, modest, mocking, sympathetic, seductive. Yes, life is a woman!”

“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”

“The free spirit again draws near to life - slowly, to be sure, almost reluctantly, almost mistrustfully. It again grows warmer about him, yellower as it were; feeling and feeling for others acquire depth, warm breezes of all kind blow across him. It seems to him as if his eyes are only now open to what is close at hand. he is astonished and sits silent: where had he been? These close and closest things: how changed they seem! what bloom and magic they have acquired! He looks back gratefully - grateful to his wandering, to his hardness and self-alienation, to his viewing of far distances and bird-like flights in cold heights. What a good thing he had not always stayed "at home," stayed "under his own roof" like a delicate apathetic loafer! He had been -beside himself-: no doubt about that. Only now does he see himself - and what surprises he experiences as he does so! What unprecedented shudders! What happiness even in the weariness, the old sickness, the relapses of the convalescent! How he loves to sit sadly still, to spin out patience, to lie in the sun! Who understands as he does the joy that comes in winter, the spots of sunlight on the wall! They are the most grateful animals in the world, also the most modest, these convalescents and lizards again half-turned towards life: - there are some among them who allow no day to pass without hanging a little song of praise on the hem of its departing robe. And to speak seriously: to become sick in the manner of these free spirits, to remain sick for a long time and then, slowly, slowly, to become healthy, by which I mean "healthier," is a fundamental cure for all pessimism.”

“In letting God sit in judgment they judge themselves; in glorifying God they glorify themselves.”

“Prijatelji moji, kao mladici imali smo tezak zivot, mi smo patili od mladosti kao da je to neka teska bolljka. To je dolazilo od veka u koji smo bili baceni, veka ogromnog unutrasnjeg opadanja i raspadanja, koji se sa svima svojim slabostima, pa cak i svojom najboljom snagom suprotstavlja duhu mladosti. Raspadanje, to jest neizvesnost, svojstveno je ovom veku, nista ne stoji na sigurnim nogama i tvrdoj veri u sebe, zivi se za sutra, jer je prekosutra neizvesno. Sve je klizavo i opasno na nasem putu, a uz to se jos otanjio led na kome stojimo, svi osecamo kako dise stravican, topao jug - gde mi jos sada gazimo, doskora niko vise nece moci da stane nogom.”

“Writers whose thoughts are expressed with clarity and precision are assumed by readers to be superficial. Where the meaning is obscured, then readers give more attention and consider the fruit of their labour more valuable”

“It was suffering and incapacity that created all afterworlds - this, and that brief madness of bliss which is experienced only by those who suffer deeply. Weariness that wants to reach the ultimate with one leap, with one fatal leap, a poor ignorant weariness that does not want to want any more: this created all gods and afterworlds.”

“Gerçekten sert bir yeldir Zerdüşt açaltılar için; şu öğüdü verir düşmanlarına, tüküren, balgam atan kim varsa hepsine: Yele karşı tükürmekten sakının!...”

“Life no argument. - We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we can live - by positing bodies, lines, planes, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content; without these articles of faith nobody now could endure life. But that does not prove them. Life is no argument. The conditions of life might include error.”

“Man is the most bungled of all the animals, the sickliest, and not one has strayed more dangerously from its instincts. But for all that, of course, he is the most interesting.”

“To the man of science, on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called 'philosophical systems'; with bewitching deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life... Other natures again, may well grow exceedingly ill-humoured and curse the salty taste which these apparitions leave behind in the mouth and from which arises a raging thirst – without one having been brought so much as a step nearer to any kind of spring.”

“The good men of every age are those who go to the roots of the old thoughts and bear fruit with them.”

“Either one does not dream, or one does so interestingly. One should learn to spend one's waking life in the same way: not at all, or interestingly.”

“It is to be hoped, indeed, that LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not get over its awkwardness, and that it will continue to talk of opposites where there are only degrees and many refinements of gradation”

“24. O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple!”

“Every acquisition, every step forward in knowledge is the result of courage, of severity toward oneself, of cleanliness with respect to oneself.”

“Wielu ludzi tak bardzo przywykło do przebywania tylko ze sobą, że zgoła nie porównywają się z innymi, lecz pędzą swój monologowy żywot w spokojnym, radosnym nastroju, na dobrych rozmowach ze sobą, nawet na śmiechach. Jeżeli się jednak zmusi ich do porównania siebie z innymi, skłaniają się wtedy do markotliwego niedoceniania samych siebie: do tego stopnia, iż trzeba ich zmuszać, żeby znowu nauczyli się dobrego, słusznego mniemania o sobie od innych: i jeszcze od tej nabytej opinii będą chcieli zawsze coś odciągnąć i wytargować. - Przeto należy pewnym ludziom użyczyć ich samotności, i nie być tak głupim, jak to się często zdarza, żeby ich z tego powodu żałować”

“215. As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which determine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different colours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now with green, and then simultaneously illumine and flood it with motley colours: so we modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our "firmament," are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine alternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocal—and there are often cases, also, in which our actions are MOTLEY-COLOURED.”