46 Mind-Blowing Quotes By Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) was a German philosopher. In his brilliant but relatively brief career, he published numerous major works of philosophy, including Twilight of the Idols and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the last decade of his life, he suffered from insanity; he died on August 25, 1900. His writings on individuality and morality in contemporary civilization influenced many major thinkers and writers of the 20th century.

Nietzsche's key ideas include perspectivism, the will to power, the death of God, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is "life-affirmation", which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond.

Nietzsche's attitude towards religion and morality was marked with atheism, psychologism, and historism; he considered them to be human creations loaded with the error of confusing cause and effect. His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism.

Here are 44 mind-blowing quotes of his:

1) “The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

2) “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.” (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

3) “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” (Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer)

4) “A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”

5) “Without music, life would be a mistake.” (Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer)

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

7) “Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.”

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

9) “One ought to hold on to one's heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”

10) “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' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” (The Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)

11) “There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”

12) “A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

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

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

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

16) “Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.”

17) “Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier and simpler.”

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

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

20) “Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?”

21) “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.”

22) “Man is the cruelest animal.”

23) “The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”

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

25) “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.”

26) “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

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

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

29) “I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”

30) “The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”

31) “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.”

32) “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

33) “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”

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

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

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

37) “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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

44) “It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”

45) “A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.”

46) “In trut h,there was only one christian and he died on the cross.”

Some of Friedrich Nietzsche's Books:

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer
• The Gay Science: with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

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