Quotations by Author

Friedrich Nietzsche

There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason in madness.

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

In heaven all the interesting people are missing.

Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's?

God is dead: but considering the state the species of Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.

I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it.

The very word 'Christianity' is a misunderstanding--at bottom there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross. Note: Often misquoted as "The last Christian died on the cross"

Love of one is a piece of barbarism: for it is practised at the expense of all others. Love of God likewise.

The same emotions in man and woman are, however, different in tempo: therefore man and woman never cease to misunderstand one another.

Mature manhood: that means to have rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.

Sensuality often makes love grow too quickly, so that the root remains weak and is easy to pull out.

Madness is something rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule.

In short, systems of morals are only a sign-language of the emotions.

Without the errors inherent in the postulates of morality, man would have remained an animal. But as it is he has taken himself to be something higher and has imposed stricter laws upon himself. He therefore has a hatred of those stages of man that remain closer to the animal state.

We must think of men who are cruel today as stages of earlier cultures, which have been left over ... They show us what we all were, and frighten us. But they themselves are as little responsible as a piece of granite for being granite.

Isn't it clear that, in all these cases [of selflessness] man is loving something of himself, a thought, a longing, an offspring, more than something else of himself, that he is thus dividing up his being and sacrificing one part for the other?

The thinking of men who believe in magic and miracles is bent on imposing a law on nature; and in short, religious worship is the result of this thinking.

Christianity came into being in order to lighten the heart; but now it has to burden the heart first, in order to be able to lighten it afterwards. Consequently it will perish.

There is not enough love and kindness in the world to permit us to give any of it away to imaginary beings.

What do we long for when we see beauty? To be beautiful. We think much happiness must be connected with it. But that is an error.

Art renders the sight of life bearable by laying over it the gauze of impure thinking.

Every writer is surprised anew when a book, as soon as it has been separated from him, begins to take on a life of its own ... it goes about finding its readers, kindles life, pleases, horrifies, fathers new works, becomes the soul of others' resolutions and behaviour. In short, it lives like a being fitted out with a mind and soul—yet it is nevertheless not human."

Everyone carries within him an image of woman that he gets from his mother; that determines whether he will honor women in general, or despise them, or be generally indifferent to them.

In every kind of female love, something of maternal love appears also.

When entering a marriage, one should ask the question: do you think you will be able to have good conversations with this woman right into old age? Everything else in marriage transitory, but most of the time in interaction is spent in conversation.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

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

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.

Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.

In everything one thing is impossible: rationality.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

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

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.

Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

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

Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

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

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in "another" or "better" life.

A casual stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.