Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

Joy is the will which labors, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.

The purpose of life is to find your gift. The meaning of life is to give it away.

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

What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

Love is not consolation. It is light.

We have art in order not to die from the truth.

No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.

Art is the proper task of life.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.

Whoever has overthrown an existing law of custom has hitherto always first been accounted a bad man: but when, as did happen, the law could not afterwards be reinstated and this fact was accepted, the predicate gradually changed.

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

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

In truth, there was only one Christian and he died on the cross.

There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.

Without cruelty, there is no festival.

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions—as attempts to find out something.

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

All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.

There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.

You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame: how could you become new, if you had not first become ashes?

I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets through many a dark night.

No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

In every real man, a child is hidden that wants to play.

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

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

The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!

Without music, life would be a mistake.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

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

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

Man is the cruelest animal.

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

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

It is your will to shine that calls me. It is your desire to be great that calls me. Let the weak ones die. Let the fools die. Let the souls be miserable.

Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.

The doer alone learneth.

In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.

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

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

There are no facts, only interpretations.

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.

My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it, but love it.

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.

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

Become who you are.

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

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

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.'

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.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

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

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