Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

Friedrich Nietzsche Short Biography

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈniːtsʃə]; in English UK: /ˈniːtʃə/, US: /ˈniːtʃi/, NEE-chuh) (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist. He wrote critical texts on religion, morality, contemporary culture, philosophy and science, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and aphorism.

Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism, and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Übermensch, the eternal recurrence, and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.

Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. At the age of 24 he was appointed to the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel (the youngest individual to have held this position), but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life. In 1889 he became mentally ill, possibly due to atypical general paralysis attributed to tertiary syphilis. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897, then under the care of his sister until his death in 1900.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
Friedrich Nietzsche

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.
Friedrich Nietzsche

After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
Friedrich Nietzsche

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Friedrich Nietzsche

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
Friedrich Nietzsche

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

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Friedrich Nietzsche

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?
Friedrich Nietzsche

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Friedrich Nietzsche

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
Friedrich Nietzsche

And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.
Friedrich Nietzsche