Friedrich Nietzsche

“In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.”

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

“We have art in order not to die of the truth.”

“Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

“Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic, religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire, passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits of illogical thinking, this world has gradually become so marvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it has acquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the human intellect that has made appearances appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions into things.”

“How good music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy.”

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”

“A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at five or six great men- yes, and then to get around them.”

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

“My dear friend, what is this our life? A boat that swims in the sea, and all one knows for certain about it is that one day it will capsize. Here we are, two good old boats that have been faithful neighbors, and above all your hand has done its best to keep me from "capsizing"! Let us then continue our voyage—each for the other's sake, for a long time yet, a long time! We should miss each other so much! Tolerably calm seas and good winds and above all sun—what I wish for myself, I wish for you, too, and am sorry that my gratitude can find expression only in such a wish and has no influence at all on wind or weather!”

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

“As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples. ”

“The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.”

“In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.”

“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.”

“as the "people of the centre" in everysense of the term, the Germans are more intangible, more ample, more contradictory, more unknown, more incalculable, more surprising, and even more terrifying than other peoples are to themselves:--they escape DEFINITION, and are thereby alone the despair of the French.”

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

“The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.”

“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

“Those moralists, on the other hand, who, following in the footsteps of Socrates, offer the individual a morality of self-control and temperance as a means to his own advantage, as his personal key to happiness, are the exceptions.”

“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. ”

“I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.”

“In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross.”

“Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is.”

“All truth is simple ... is that not doubly a lie?”

“i have never pondered over questions that are not questions.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

“What is the seal of liberation? Not to be ashamed in front of oneself.”

“Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit.It is no easy task to understand unfamiliar blood; I hate the reading idlers.He who knoweth the reader, doeth nothing more for the reader. Another century of readers--and spirit itself will stink.Every one being allowed to learn to read, ruineth in the long run not only writing but also thinking.Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it even becometh populace.He that writeth in blood and proverbs doth not want to be read, but learnt by heart.In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak, but for that route thou must have long legs. Proverbs should be peaks, and those spoken to should be big and tall.The atmosphere rare and pure, danger near and the spirit full of a joyful wickedness: thus are things well matched.I want to have goblins about me, for I am courageous. The courage which scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblins--it wanteth to laugh.”

“If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs.”

“And finally, to call to mind the enormous influence which "German philosophy"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas-”

“It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.”

“The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned.”

“In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.”

“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”

“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!”

“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.”

“Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But 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.”

“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.”

“Only sick music makes money today.”

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”