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| Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche born 1844 died 1900 was a famous philosopher, poet and critic |
Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche
Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.
A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of the time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.
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.
We praise or blame according as the one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment.
In the knowledge of truth, what really matters is the possession of it, not the impulse under which it was sought.
No honey is sweeter than that of knowledge
Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.
Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.
Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.
When good friends praise a gifted person he often appears to be delighted with them out of politeness and goodwill, but in reality he feels indifferent.
In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought.
Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.
Be generous in nature and thought; for this wins respect and gives confidence and power.
Young authors do not know that a good expression or idea only looks well among its peers; that an excellent quotation may spoil whole pages, even the whole book; for it seems to cry warning to the reader.
Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.
For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.
Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things; both do not want to be pursued.
An important species of pleasure, and there with the source of morality, arises out of habit.
For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.
To think historically is almost the same thing now as if in all ages history had been made according to theory.
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?"
Conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that they are friends.
He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process, and when you stare persistently into an abyss, the abyss also stares into you
Be careful who you choose as your enemy because that’s who you become most like.
It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character.
History teaches that a race of people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and indisputable principles.
He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.
The artistic genius desires to give pleasure, but if his mind is on a very high plane he does not easily find anyone to share his pleasure.
He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.
Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.
It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error.
A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.
To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives. Whoever has known immorality in connection with pleasure, as is the case with a man who has a pleasure-seeking youth behind him, imagines that virtue must be connected with absence of pleasure.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.
In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be greater; the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its existence. In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so in man.
Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.
It is only because man believes himself to be free, not because he is free, that he experiences remorse and pricks of conscience.
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of oneself but of one’s ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach it and are delighted.
The love of indulgence is rooted in the depths of a man’s heart. His soul would prefer to share the excessive and unrestrained; but his soul cannot love.
The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.
How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.
The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.
Freedom of opinion is like health; both are individual, and no good general conception can be set up of either of them.
When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the animals by his vulgarity.
Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain.
The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is to regard everybody merely as a means to one's own ends, or of no account whatever.
Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us.
One often contradicts an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it has been presented that is unsympathetic.
We are more pained when one of our friends is guilty of something shameful than when we do it ourselves.
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.
The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is that he has the strength to recognize and to live with the recognition that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. He creates himself by fashioning his own values; he has the pride to live by the values he wills.
However much we may feel for the misery of someone close to us, we always act with some artificiality in their presence. We hold-back from telling them everything we think, often because we do not genuinely mean what we say; or because we take a pleasure in their plight, thankful that we are not affected.
Pity aims just as little at the pleasure of others as malice at the pain of others Per-Se.
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.
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired someday.
Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability.
Without passions you have no experience whatever.
That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.
There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time.
The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity; nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.
The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others.
Disappointment is when one has finished building their house suddenly realizes that in the process they have learned something that they really needed to know before they started.
Man climbs dangerous paths up the highest mountains in order that he may laugh to scorn his own fear and his trembling knees.
No power can be maintained when it is only represented by hypocrites.
Spiritual strength and passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing.
I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did.
He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself
Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil.
Every belief in the value and worthiness of life is based on vitiated thought; it is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed.
Men submit from habit to everything that seeks power.
We have art so that we may not perish by the truth.
When any one quotes himself in conversation it gives the impression of presumption.
A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.
It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.
Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy.
Greatness means leading the way. No stream is large and copious of itself, but becomes great by receiving and leading on so many tributary streams. It is so, also, with all intellectual greatness, it is only a question of someone indicating the direction to be followed by so many affluent; not whether he was richly or poorly gifted originally.
Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.
One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.
What does not destroy me makes me stronger.
One unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of the one by the pain of the other.
Kindliness, friendliness, the courtesy of the heart, are ever-flowing streams of non-egoistic impulses, and have given far more powerful assistance to culture than even those much more famous demonstrations which are called pity, mercy, and self-sacrifice.
What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you.
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
The less men are fettered by tradition, the greater becomes the inward activity of their motives, and greater again in proportion to their outer restlessness.
Everyone becomes brave when he observes one who despairs.
The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.
Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough customs, thus is learnt the subjection of the individual, and strenuousness of character becomes a birth gift and afterwards is fostered as a habit.
Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape.
It is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the individual.
When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.
We become aware, however, that all customs, even the hardest, grow pleasanter and milder with time, and that the severest way of life may become a habit and therefore a pleasure.
Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established.
Altered opinions do not alter a man's character; but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different assemblage of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable.
The rising and falling of the scales of pride and humility sustain the brooding mind as well as the alternations of desire and peace of the soul.
It is within your power to see that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions, passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim.
No one lies as much as the indignant.
The form of a work of art, which gives speech to their thoughts and is, therefore, their mode of talking, is always somewhat uncertain, like all kinds of speech.
I distrust all systematics, and avoid them. The will to a system shows a lack of honesty.
All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen.
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
There are two types of genius; one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth.
Without the errors which lie in the assumption of morality, man would have remained an animal.
He who recites dramatic works makes discoveries about his own character.
Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.
Philosophers are in the habit of setting themselves before life and experience.
It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error, the error of responsibility, which is based upon the error of the freedom of will.
Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then inevitably becomes a hypocrite.
When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
The courage of all one really knows comes but late in life.
Walk forward upon the path of wisdom, with a firm step and good confidence, and however you may be situated serve yourself as a source of experience.
Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.
He who lives by fighting with the enemy has an interest in preserving the enemy’s life.
Passionate people take little notice of what others may think; their state of mind raises them above conceit.
Only a modest virtue gets along with contentment.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
Those who are bent on revolutionizing society may be divided into those who seek something for themselves thereby and those who seek something for their children and grandchildren.
Whoever gives advice to a sick person acquires a feeling of superiority over him, whether the advice be accepted or rejected.
There is a certain right by which we deprive a man of life, but none by which we deprive him of death; this is cruelty.
The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.
Government is of very small importance, although half educated people think otherwise.
It has been noticed that it is only in the earlier period of their sojourn in foreign countries that travelers rightly grasp the general distinguishing features of a people.
That which is necessary for the health of one individual is the cause of disease in another.
We are afraid of the animosity of our neighbor because we are apprehensive that he may thereby discover our secrets.
Every master has but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for mastership.
In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many.
Speaking is a beautiful folly; with that man dances over all things.
It is possible that the production of genius is reserved to a limited period of mankind's history.
It is strange enough that the association of lust, religion, and cruelty did not long ago draw men's attention to their close relationship and common tendency.
Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics; they desire our blood not our pain.
Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is well known. If his morality is judged to be the capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and self-denial which, when continuous and grown habitual, are called holiness.
Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.
The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, and also something much rarer. The natural history of animals furnishes grounds in support of this theory.
Those that achieve anything that looks beyond the vision and thinking of their peers provoke jealousy and hatred disguised as the ordinary.
The great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality.
So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, everyone is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence.
The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.
Our destiny rules over us, even when we are not yet aware of it; it is the future that makes laws for our today.
He who does not desire much more from things than knowledge of them easily makes peace with his soul.
Idleness is the parent of all psychology.
To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
The happiness of a man is: I will.
For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.
A book is made better by good readers and clearer by good opponents.
Praise is more obtrusive than a reproach.
He that is humble wishes to be exalted.
If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.
One does not hate as long as one still despises, but only those whom one esteems equal or higher.
We deceive ourselves when giving respect to the person for whom we have surrendered ourselves, when we respectively expect them to be as we would wish them to be.
The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part ceases at last to be a hypocrite.
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false; a gift confers no rights.
A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of the time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.
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.
We praise or blame according as the one or the other affords more opportunity for exhibiting our power of judgment.
In the knowledge of truth, what really matters is the possession of it, not the impulse under which it was sought.
No honey is sweeter than that of knowledge
Nobody thanks a witty man for politeness when he puts himself on a par with a society in which it would not be polite to show one's wit.
Life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.
Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.
When good friends praise a gifted person he often appears to be delighted with them out of politeness and goodwill, but in reality he feels indifferent.
In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought.
Art is essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.
Be generous in nature and thought; for this wins respect and gives confidence and power.
Young authors do not know that a good expression or idea only looks well among its peers; that an excellent quotation may spoil whole pages, even the whole book; for it seems to cry warning to the reader.
Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.
For both parties in a controversy, the most disagreeable way of retaliating is to be vexed and silent; for the aggressor usually regards the silence as a sign of contempt.
Good manners disappear in proportion as the influence of a Court and an exclusive aristocracy lessens; this decrease can be plainly observed from decade to decade by those who have an eye for public behavior, which grows visibly.
Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things; both do not want to be pursued.
An important species of pleasure, and there with the source of morality, arises out of habit.
For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.
To think historically is almost the same thing now as if in all ages history had been made according to theory.
Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: "Ah, why would you also have as hard a time of it as I have?"
Conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that they are friends.
He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process, and when you stare persistently into an abyss, the abyss also stares into you
Be careful who you choose as your enemy because that’s who you become most like.
It is far pleasanter to injure and afterwards beg forgiveness than to be injured and grant forgiveness. He who does the former gives evidence of power and afterwards of kindness of character.
History teaches that a race of people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and indisputable principles.
He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.
The artistic genius desires to give pleasure, but if his mind is on a very high plane he does not easily find anyone to share his pleasure.
He who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things.
Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.
It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error.
A lack of the historical sense is the hereditary fault of all philosophers.
To what fortuitous occurrence do we not owe every pleasure and convenience of our lives. Whoever has known immorality in connection with pleasure, as is the case with a man who has a pleasure-seeking youth behind him, imagines that virtue must be connected with absence of pleasure.
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
The more you let yourself go, the less others let you go.
In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be greater; the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in fact immense, considering the multiplicity of the conditions of its existence. In a lizard a finger grows again which has been lost; not so in man.
Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.
No small art is it to sleep: it is necessary for that purpose to keep awake all day.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task.
It is only because man believes himself to be free, not because he is free, that he experiences remorse and pricks of conscience.
The only happiness lies in reason; all the rest of the world is dismal. The highest reason, however, I see in the work of the artist, and he may experience it as such. Happiness lies in the swiftness of feeling and thinking: all the rest of the world is slow, gradual and stupid. Whoever could feel the course of a light ray would be very happy, for it is very swift. Thinking of oneself gives little happiness. If, however, one feels much happiness in this, it is because at bottom one is not thinking of oneself but of one’s ideal. This is far, and only the swift shall reach it and are delighted.
The love of indulgence is rooted in the depths of a man’s heart. His soul would prefer to share the excessive and unrestrained; but his soul cannot love.
The higher culture an individual attains, the less field there is left for mockery and scorn.
How much rationality and higher protection there is in such self-deception, and how much falseness I still require in order to allow myself again and again the luxury of my sincerity.
The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.
Freedom of opinion is like health; both are individual, and no good general conception can be set up of either of them.
When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the animals by his vulgarity.
Compulsion precedes morality, indeed morality itself is compulsion for a time, to which one submits for the avoidance of pain.
The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is to regard everybody merely as a means to one's own ends, or of no account whatever.
Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us.
One often contradicts an opinion when it is really only the tone in which it has been presented that is unsympathetic.
We are more pained when one of our friends is guilty of something shameful than when we do it ourselves.
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.
The strong individual loves the earth so much he lusts for recurrence. He can smile in the face of the most terrible thought: meaningless, aimless existence recurring eternally. The second characteristic of such a man is that he has the strength to recognize and to live with the recognition that the world is valueless in itself and that all values are human ones. He creates himself by fashioning his own values; he has the pride to live by the values he wills.
However much we may feel for the misery of someone close to us, we always act with some artificiality in their presence. We hold-back from telling them everything we think, often because we do not genuinely mean what we say; or because we take a pleasure in their plight, thankful that we are not affected.
Pity aims just as little at the pleasure of others as malice at the pain of others Per-Se.
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.
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired someday.
Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability.
Without passions you have no experience whatever.
That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.
There is sense in hoping for recognition in a distant future only when we take it for granted that mankind will remain essentially unchanged, and that whatever is great is not for one age only but will be looked upon as great for all time.
The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity; nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.
The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others.
Disappointment is when one has finished building their house suddenly realizes that in the process they have learned something that they really needed to know before they started.
Man climbs dangerous paths up the highest mountains in order that he may laugh to scorn his own fear and his trembling knees.
No power can be maintained when it is only represented by hypocrites.
Spiritual strength and passion, when accompanied by bad manners, only provoke loathing.
I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did.
He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself
Whatever occurs from love is always beyond good and evil.
Every belief in the value and worthiness of life is based on vitiated thought; it is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed.
Men submit from habit to everything that seeks power.
We have art so that we may not perish by the truth.
When any one quotes himself in conversation it gives the impression of presumption.
A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.
It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.
Every habit makes our hand more witty and our wit less handy.
Greatness means leading the way. No stream is large and copious of itself, but becomes great by receiving and leading on so many tributary streams. It is so, also, with all intellectual greatness, it is only a question of someone indicating the direction to be followed by so many affluent; not whether he was richly or poorly gifted originally.
Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.
One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear.
What does not destroy me makes me stronger.
One unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of the one by the pain of the other.
Kindliness, friendliness, the courtesy of the heart, are ever-flowing streams of non-egoistic impulses, and have given far more powerful assistance to culture than even those much more famous demonstrations which are called pity, mercy, and self-sacrifice.
What upsets me is not that you lied to me, but that from now on I can no longer believe you.
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
The less men are fettered by tradition, the greater becomes the inward activity of their motives, and greater again in proportion to their outer restlessness.
Everyone becomes brave when he observes one who despairs.
The parasites live where the great have little secret sores.
Thus strength is afforded by good and thorough customs, thus is learnt the subjection of the individual, and strenuousness of character becomes a birth gift and afterwards is fostered as a habit.
Rational thought is interpretation according to a scheme which we cannot escape.
It is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the individual.
When virtue has slept, she will get up more refreshed.
We become aware, however, that all customs, even the hardest, grow pleasanter and milder with time, and that the severest way of life may become a habit and therefore a pleasure.
Liberal institutions straightway cease from being liberal the moment they are soundly established.
Altered opinions do not alter a man's character; but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different assemblage of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable.
The rising and falling of the scales of pride and humility sustain the brooding mind as well as the alternations of desire and peace of the soul.
It is within your power to see that all you have experienced, trials, errors, faults, deceptions, passions, your love and your hope, shall be merged wholly in your aim.
No one lies as much as the indignant.
The form of a work of art, which gives speech to their thoughts and is, therefore, their mode of talking, is always somewhat uncertain, like all kinds of speech.
I distrust all systematics, and avoid them. The will to a system shows a lack of honesty.
All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into slaves and freemen.
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
There are two types of genius; one which above all begets and wants to beget, and another which prefers being fertilized and giving birth.
Without the errors which lie in the assumption of morality, man would have remained an animal.
He who recites dramatic works makes discoveries about his own character.
Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.
Philosophers are in the habit of setting themselves before life and experience.
It has therewith come to be recognized that the history of moral valuations is at the same time the history of an error, the error of responsibility, which is based upon the error of the freedom of will.
Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then inevitably becomes a hypocrite.
When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
The courage of all one really knows comes but late in life.
Walk forward upon the path of wisdom, with a firm step and good confidence, and however you may be situated serve yourself as a source of experience.
Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.
He who lives by fighting with the enemy has an interest in preserving the enemy’s life.
Passionate people take little notice of what others may think; their state of mind raises them above conceit.
Only a modest virtue gets along with contentment.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
Those who are bent on revolutionizing society may be divided into those who seek something for themselves thereby and those who seek something for their children and grandchildren.
Whoever gives advice to a sick person acquires a feeling of superiority over him, whether the advice be accepted or rejected.
There is a certain right by which we deprive a man of life, but none by which we deprive him of death; this is cruelty.
The man who meets with a failure attributes this failure rather to the ill will of another than to fate.
Government is of very small importance, although half educated people think otherwise.
It has been noticed that it is only in the earlier period of their sojourn in foreign countries that travelers rightly grasp the general distinguishing features of a people.
That which is necessary for the health of one individual is the cause of disease in another.
We are afraid of the animosity of our neighbor because we are apprehensive that he may thereby discover our secrets.
Every master has but one disciple, and that one becomes unfaithful to him, for he too is destined for mastership.
In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many.
Speaking is a beautiful folly; with that man dances over all things.
It is possible that the production of genius is reserved to a limited period of mankind's history.
It is strange enough that the association of lust, religion, and cruelty did not long ago draw men's attention to their close relationship and common tendency.
Insects sting, not from malice, but because they want to live. It is the same with critics; they desire our blood not our pain.
Man is not equally moral at all hours, this is well known. If his morality is judged to be the capability for great self-sacrificing resolutions and self-denial which, when continuous and grown habitual, are called holiness.
Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.
The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, and also something much rarer. The natural history of animals furnishes grounds in support of this theory.
Those that achieve anything that looks beyond the vision and thinking of their peers provoke jealousy and hatred disguised as the ordinary.
The great poet draws his creations only from out of his own reality.
So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, everyone is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence.
The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.
Our destiny rules over us, even when we are not yet aware of it; it is the future that makes laws for our today.
He who does not desire much more from things than knowledge of them easily makes peace with his soul.
Idleness is the parent of all psychology.
To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
The happiness of a man is: I will.
For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.
A book is made better by good readers and clearer by good opponents.
Praise is more obtrusive than a reproach.
He that is humble wishes to be exalted.
If you believed more in life you would fling yourself less to the moment.
One does not hate as long as one still despises, but only those whom one esteems equal or higher.
We deceive ourselves when giving respect to the person for whom we have surrendered ourselves, when we respectively expect them to be as we would wish them to be.
The hypocrite who always plays one and the same part ceases at last to be a hypocrite.
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false; a gift confers no rights.
