Friedrich Nietzsche

Out of a brotherly love we occasionally embrace this or that somebody (because we cannot embrace everybody): but we must never let our somebody know it.

Why does man not see things? He always gets in the way: he conceals things.

When we cannot stand certain people, we try to have suspicions about them.

Women are quite capable of entering into a friendship with a man, but to keep it going—that takes a little physical antipathy as well.

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.

The unselective knowledge drive resembles the indiscriminate sexual drive—signs of vulgarity!

The strongest knowledge (that of the complete non-freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in results: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.

The "kingdom of heaven" is a condition of the heart—not something that comes "above the earth" or "after death."

There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause.

Honest towards ourselves and towards anyone else who is our friend; brave towards the enemy; magnanimous towards the defeated; polite—always: this is how the four cardinal virtues want us to act.

The poet conveys his thoughts in festive solemnity on the carriage of rhythm: usually because they are unable to walk on their own feet.

The condition that gives birth to a rule is not the same as the condition to which the rule gives birth.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

We mention nature and forget ourselves in it: we ourselves are nature, quand même—. As a result, nature is something entirely different from what comes to mind when we invoke its name.

What an age experiences as evil is usually an untimely reverberation echoing what was previously experienced as good—the atavism of an older ideal.

The aphorism, the apothegm, in which I am the first among the Germans to be a master, are the forms of "eternity"; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book—what everyone else does not say in a book.

You lack the courage to be consumed in flames and to become ashes: so you will never become new, and never young again!

One is most duplicitous toward one's god: he is not allowed to sin.

Some rule out of a lust for ruling; others, so as not to be ruled:Mto these it is merely the lesser of two evils.

In our interactions with people, a benevolent hypocrisy is frequently required—acting as though we do not see through the motives of their actions.

Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.

We seldom break a leg as long as we are climbing wearily upwards in our lives, instead we do it when we start going easy on ourselves and choosing the comfortable paths.

All truth is crooked, time itself is a circle.

A small garden, figs, a little cheese, and, along with this, three or four good friends—such was luxury to Epicurus.

The moment Germany rises as a great power, France gains a new importance as a cultural power.

Everything good is the transmutation of something evil: every god has a devil for a father.

One has observed life poorly, if one has not also witnessed the hand that mercifully—kills.

The snake that cannot shed its skin perishes. Likewise those spirits who are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be spirits.

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.

Women are supposed to be deep—why? Because one can never get to the bottom with them. Women are not even shallow.

"What must I do to become blessed?" That I do not know, but I say to you: "Be blessed and then do whatever you please."

Madness is a rare thing in individuals—but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages it is the rule.

Do you want to go on together? Or go ahead? Or go it alone? ... You have to know what you want and that you want. Fourth question of conscience.

And what was too nasty to feed a dog—that is precisely what you threw down before your god. Did he perhaps die of what you fed him?

Nothing in life possesses value except the degree of power—assuming that life itself is the will to power.

What we do in our dreams we also do when we are awake: we invent and make up the person we are dealing with—and immediately forget that we have done it.

Phlegmatic natures can be inspired to enthusiasm only by being made into fanatics.

That whatever a man says, promises, or resolves in passion he must stick to later on when he is cold and sober—this demand is among the heaviest burdens that weigh on humankind.

Generally speaking, the greater a woman's beauty, the greater her modesty.

Your rank is way down below his when you seek to establish the exceptions and he seeks to establish the rule.

I fear animals regard man as a creature of their own kind which has in a highly dangerous fashion lost its healthy animal reason—as the mad animal, as the laughing animal, as the weeping animal, as the unhappy animal.

With deep men, as with deep wells, it takes a long time for anything that falls into them to hit bottom. Onlookers, who almost never wait long enough, readily suppose that such men are callous and unresponsive—or even boring.

The English are a nation of consummate cant.

This is the crux of the moral pessimists: if they really wanted to promote their neighbor's redemption, then they would have to resolve themselves to spoiling existence for him, and thus to being his misfortune; out of pity, they would have to—become evil!

Oh, how much is today hidden by science! Oh, how much it is expected to hide!

The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.

What is the strongest cure?—Victory.

The relatives of a suicide hold it against him that out of consideration for their reputation he did not remain alive.

Contentment even protects against colds. Has any woman who knew herself to be well dressed ever caught a cold?—I am assuming that she was barely dressed.

We must be cruel as well as compassionate: let us guard against becoming poorer than nature is!