Why should I know Friedrich Nietzsche?

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

“A thought, even a possibility, can shatter and transform us.”

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

“Ah, women! They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.”

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”

“At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”

“At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.”

“Distrust in all whom the impulse to punish is powerful.”

“Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is.”

“Freedom is the will to be responsible to ourselves.”

“God is dead! He remains dead! And we have killed him.”

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

“He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

“Hold a true friend with both your hands.”

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”

“I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible.”

“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”

“In heaven all the interesting people are missing.”

“Insanity in individuals is rare – but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs, it is the rule.”

“Is it better to out-monster the monster or to be quietly devoured?”

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

“Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?”

“It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation.”

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

“Man is the cruelest animal.”

“Man is the sick animal.’ Man is the animal that doesn’t know what to do with itself. The mind has many possibilities, but we can live no more than one life. What are we going to do with ourselves?”

“Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen. Few in pursuit of the goal.”

“Maturity means reacquiring the seriousness one had as a child at play.”

“Morality is herd instinct in the individual.”

“Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter.”

“One ought to hold on to one’s heart. For if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.”

“One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”

“Only sick music makes money today.”

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

“Plato was a bore.”

“Remorse. Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second.”

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”

“Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.”

“That which does not kill us, makes us stronger.”

“The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.”

“The Athenians matured because they were challenged on all fronts.”

“The doer alone learneth.”

“The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man.”

“The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”

“The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!”

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”

“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.”

“The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.”

“The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.”

“There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.”

“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”

“To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.”

“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.”

“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”

“Two great European narcotics: alcohol and Christianity.”

“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”

“We often contradict an opinion for no other reason than that we do not like the tone in which it is expressed.”

“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.”

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

“Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called Ego.”

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”