Popular Friedrich Nietzsche's Quotes And Sayings

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Enjoy life. This is not a dress rehearsal.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

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.

Everything matters. Nothing's important.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

There's no defense against stupidity.

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

The real question is: How much truth can I stand?

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

Be careful who you choose as your enemy because that's who you become most like.

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.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

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

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.

Solitude makes us tougher towards ourselves and tenderer towards others. In both ways it improves our character.

Man is the only animal that must be encouraged to live.

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, ''I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?

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.

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.

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

If you know the why, you can live any how.

Men who think deeply appear to be comedians in their dealings with others because they always have to feign superficiality in order to be understood.

I and me are always too deeply in conversation.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

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

We are so fond of being out among nature, because it has no opinions about us.

And once you are awake, you shall remain awake eternally.

If the all powerful god controls satan he is an accomplice, and if he doesn't, he is not an all powerful god.

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

Loneliness is one thing, solitude another.

Our greatest experiences are our quietest moments.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

One must be a sea, to receive a polluted stream without becoming impure.

What is the truth, but a lie agreed upon.

Only he who is man enough will release the woman in woman.

What is the difference between someone who is convinced and one who is deceived? None, if he is well deceived.

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.

In revenge and in love, woman is more barbarous than man.

Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don’t throw away the best of yourself.

The purpose of criminal law is to punish the enemies of those in power.

The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level (by belittling them, excluding them, tripping them up) or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else (by acknowledging them, helping them, and rejoicing in their success).

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

Silence is worse; all truths that are kept silent become poisonous.

Few are made for independence, it is the privilege of the strong.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

You know a moment is important when it is making your mind go numb with beauty.

People who live in an age of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know that there are other kinds of murder than by dagger or assault; they also know that whatever is well said is believed.

Those who are devoid of purpose will make the void their purpose.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.

What is wrong with Christianity is that it refrains from doing all those things that Christ commanded should be done.

One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

Become who you are. Make what only you can make.

Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical.

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?

Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?

Invisible threads are the strongest ties.

All things that are truly great are at first thought impossible.

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

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.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.

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.

He who obeys, does not listen to himself!

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

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.

One must learn to love oneself with a wholesome and healthy love, so that one can bear to be with oneself and need not roam.

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.

Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth?

Life is the will to power; our natural desire to dominate and reshape the world to fit our own preferences and assert our personal strength to the fullest degree.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.