Socialism itself can hope to exist only for brief periods here and there, and then only through the exercise of the extremest terrorism. For this reason it is secretly preparing itself for rule through fear and is driving the word “justice” into the heads of the half-educated masses like a nail so as to rob them of their reason… and to create in them a good conscience for the evil game they are to play.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Not without deep pain do we admit to ourselves that the artists of all ages have in their highest flights carried to heavenly transfiguration precisely those conceptions that we now recognize as false: they are the glorifiers of the religious and philosophical errors of humanity, and they could not have done this without their belief in the absolute truth of these errors. Now if the belief in such truth generally diminishes, if the rainbow colors at the outermost ends of human knowing and imagining fade: then the species of art that, like the Divina commedia, Raphael's pictures, Michelangelo's frescoes, the Gothic cathedrals, presupposes not only a cosmic, but also a metaphysical significance for art objects can never blossom again. A touch
None of the people have any real interest in a science, who only begin to be enthusiastic about it when they themselves have made discoveries in it.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
None of the people have any real interest in a science, who only begin to be enthusiastic about it when they themselves have made discoveries in it.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Marriage as a long conversation. - When marrying you should ask yourself this question: do you believe you are going to enjoy talking with this woman into your old age? Everything else in a marriage is transitory, but most of the time that you're together will be devoted to conversation.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took sides, not without resentment, against myself and for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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proverbial, quote, philosopher, proverb, meaning
Just as in the second part of a verse bad poets seek a thought to fit their rhyme, so in the second half of their lives people tend to become more anxious about finding actions, positions, relationships that fit those of their earlier lives, so that everything harmonizes quite well on the surface: but their lives are no longer ruled by a strong thought, and instead, in its place, comes the intention of finding a rhyme.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
It is true, there could be a metaphysical world; the absolute possibility of it is hardly to be disputed. We behold all things through the human head and cannot cut off this head; while the question nonetheless remains what of the world would still be there if one had cut it off.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
It is obvious that my head does not stand properly on my shoulders; for it is well known that everyone else knows better than I what I should do and not do: only I, poor rogue, do not know what I should be at. Are we not all like statues with the wrong heads on them? Isn't that so, my dear neighbor? - But no, you, precisely you, are the exception.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
It is not conflict of opinions that has made history so violent but conflict of belief in opinions, that is to say conflict of convictions.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
It is a trick of Christianity to teach the utter worthlessness, sinfulness, and despicableness of man in general so loudly that disdain for one’s fellow men becomes impossible.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
It is a new step towards independence, once a man dares to express opinions that bring disgrace on him if he entertains them; then even his friends and acquaintances begin to grow anxious. The man of talent must pass through this fire, too; afterwards he is much more his own person.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
In conversation we are sometimes confused by the tone of our own voice, and mislead to make assertions that do not at all correspond to our opinions.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
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He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
He is called a free spirit who thinks differently from what, on the basis of his origin, environment, his class and profession, or on the basis of the dominant views of the age, would have been expected of him
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Do you deserve truth? You sure seek it, but do you deserve it? If you want to see real things burning you first have to reach up to the height of the fire.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talentsOne can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Direct self-observation is not nearly sufficient for us to know ourselves: we need history, for the past flows on within us in a hundred waves; indeed, we ourselves are nothing but that which at every moment we experience of this continual flowing.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
At a certain place in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, for example, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
And so, onwards... along a path of wisdom, with a hearty tread, a hearty confidence.. however you may be, be your own source of experience. Throw off your discontent about your nature. Forgive yourself your own self. You have it in your power to merge everything you have lived through- false starts, errors, delusions, passions, your loves and your hopes- into your goal, with nothing left over.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Among the things that can drive a thinker to despair is the knowledge that the illogical is necessary for man and that much good comes from it.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Against the censurers of brevity. - Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novice in this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefly something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.
-Friedrich Nietzsche