Works By Friedrich Nietzsche

"Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrthum."

"The most poisonous diatribes against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the ascetics, but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it necessary to be ascetics."

"The church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds. Its practice, its remedy is castration. It never inquires, “How can a desire be spiritualized, beautified, deified.” In all ages it has laid the weight of discipline in the process of extirpation. The extirpation of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and revenge. But to attack the passions at the roots means attacking life itself at its source. The method of the church is hostile to life."

"Was kann allein unsre Lehre sein?—Daß niemand dem Menschen seine Eigenschaften giebt, weder Gott, noch die Gesellschaft, noch seine Eltern und Vorfahren, noch er selbst ... Niemand ist dafür verantwortlich, daß er überhaupt da ist, daß er so und so beschaffen ist, daß er unter diesen Umständen in dieser Umgebung ist. Die Fatalität seines Wesens ist nicht herauszulösen aus der Fatalität alles dessen, was war und sein wird ... Man ist notwendig, man ist ein Stück Verhängnis, man gehört zum Ganzen, man ist im Ganzen,—es gibt nichts, was unser Sein richten, messen, vergleichen, verurteilen könnte, denn das hieße, das Ganze richten, messen, vergleichen, verurteilen ... Aber es gibt nichts außer dem Ganzen! . . .—Damit erst ist die Unschuld des Werdens wieder hergestellt"

"The criminal type is the strong type under unfavorable conditions, a strong man rendered sickly. What he lacks is the jungle, a certain freer and more dangerous form of nature and existence where all that serves as arms and armor—in the strong man’s instinctive view—is his by right. His virtues society has prohibited; the liveliest impulses he has borne within him are quickly entangled with the crushing emotions of suspicion, fear and ignominy."

"Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems, the will to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian."

"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book."

"Plato is a coward before reality, consequently he flees into the ideal"

"[I praise] the unconditional will to not deceive oneself and to see reason in reality—not in “reason,” still less in “morality.”"

"I know no higher symbolism than this Greek symbolism of the Dionysian festivals. Here the most profound instinct of life, that directed toward the future of life, the eternity of life, is experienced religiously—and the way to life, procreation, as the holy way. It was Christianity, with its ressentiment against life at the bottom of its heart, which first made something unclean of sexuality: it threw filth on the origin, on the presupposition of our life."

"It is decisive … for humanity that culture should begin in the right place—not in the “soul”: … the right place is the body, the gesture, the diet, physiology; the rest follows from that. Therefore the Greeks remain the first cultural event in history: the knew, they did, what was needed; and Christianity, which despised the body, has been the greatest misfortune to humanity so far."

"Supreme rule of conduct: before oneself too, one must not “let oneself go.”"

"It is decisive for the lot of a people and of humanity that culture should begin in the right place—not in the “soul” (as was the fateful superstition of the priests and half-priests): the right place is the body, the gesture, the diet, physiology; the rest follows from that ... Therefore the Greeks remain the first cultural event in history—they knew, they did, what was needed; and Christianity, which despised the body, has been the greatest misfortune of humanity so far."

"For the Greeks the sexual symbol was therefore the venerable symbol par excellence, the real profundity in the whole of ancient piety. Every single element in the act of procreation, of pregnancy, and of birth aroused the highest and most solemn feelings."

"The beauty of a race or family, their grace and graciousness in all gestures, is won by work: like genius, it is the end result of the accumulated work of generations. One must have made great sacrifices to good taste… one must have preferred beauty to advantage, habit, opinion and inertia."

"Instinctively to choose what is harmful for oneself, to feel attracted by “disinterested” motives, that is virtually the formula of decadence. “Not to seek one’s own advantage”—that is merely the moral fig leaf for quite a different, namely, a physiological, state of affairs: “I no longer know how to find my own advantage.” Disintegration of the instincts!"

"Instead of saying naively, “I am no longer worth anything,” the moral lie in the mouth of the decadent says, “Nothing is worth anything, life is not worth anything.”"

"Finally, some advice for our dear pessimists and other decadents. It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake …one must advance a step further in its logic and not only negate life with “will and representation,” as Schopenhauer did—one must first of all negate Schopenhauer."

"To bewail one’s lot is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether one ascribes one’s afflictions to others or to one’s self, it is all the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody must be to blame if one suffers—in short, that the sufferer drugs himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish."

"Strict perseverance in significant and exquisite gestures together with the obligation to live only with people who do not “let themselves go”—that is quite enough for one to become significant and exquisite…"

"Nur die ergangenen Gedanken haben Werth."

"All becoming and growing—all that guarantees a future—involves pain."

"My formula for the greatness of a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different—not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less conceal it … but love it."

"It is not ... the millennia of absence ... of bravery in spiritual things which betrays itself in the triumph of Christianity. It is rather ... the perfectly ghastly fact that anti-nature itself received the highest honors, as morality and as law and has remained suspends over man in the form of the categorical imperative."

"Was a single one of the philosophers who preceded me a psychologist at all, and not the very reverse of a psychologist, that is to say, a superior swindler, an idealist?"

"Not to have awakened to these discoveries before struck me as the sign of the greatest uncleanliness that mankind has on it's conscience, as self-deception become instinctive, as fundamental will to be blind to every phenomenon."

"In his own nature can be found all the terrible and questionable character of reality."

"I require no “believers,” it is my opinion that I am too full of malice to believe even in myself; I never address myself to masses."

"I refuse to be a saint; I would rather be a clown."

"That which is called “deep” in Germany is precisely this uncleanliness towards oneself. ... People refuse to be clear in regard to their own natures."

"Not only have the Germans entirely lost the breath of vision which enables one to grasp the course of culture and the values of culture, not only are they one and all political (or Church) puppets, but they have also actually put a ban upon this very breadth of vision."

"Psychology is almost the standard of measurement for the cleanliness or uncleanliness of a race."

"The German people, ... with an appetite for which they are to be envied, continue to diet themselves on contradictions, and gulp down “faith” in company with science, ... without showing the slightest signs of indigestion."

"If falsehood insists on claiming at all costs the word “truth” for its standpoint, the really truthful man must be sought out among the despised."

"I alone have the criterion of “truths” in my possession. I alone can decide."

"The kind of man that he [Zarathustra] conceives sees reality as it is. He is strong enough for this."

"The fate of music be as dear to man as his own life, because joy and suffering are alike bound up with it."

"Ich machte aus meinem Willen zur Gesundheit, zum Leben, meine Philosophie."

"Jede Errungenschaft, jeder Schritt vorwärts in der Erkenntnis folgt aus dem Muth, aus der Härte gegen sich, aus der Sauberkeit gegen sich."

"Irrthum (—der Glaube an's Ideal—) ist nicht Blindheit, Irrthum ist Feigheit."

"Wie viel Wahrheit erträgt, wie viel Wahrheit wagt ein Geist? das wurde für mich immer mehr der eigentliche Werthmesser."

"Philosophie, wie ich sie bisher verstanden und gelebt habe, ist das freiwillige Leben in Eis und Hochgebirge—das Aufsuchen alles Fremden und Fragwürdigen im Dasein, alles dessen, was durch die Moral bisher in Bann gethan war."

"Die Lüge des Ideals war bisher der Fluch über der Realität, die Menschheit selbst ist durch sie bis in ihre untersten Instinkte hinein verlogen und falsch geworden—bis zur Anbetung der umgekehrten Werthe, als die sind, mit denen ihr erst das Gedeihen, die Zukunft, das hohe Recht auf Zukunft verbürgt wäre."

"Man hat die Realität in dem Grade um ihren Werth, ihren Sinn, ihre Wahrhaftigkeit gebracht, als man eine ideale Welt erlog."

"Mensch will lieber noch das Nichts wollen als nicht wollen."

"Das entscheidende Zeichen, an dem sich ergiebt, dass der Priester (—eingerechnet die versteckten Priester, die Philosophen) nicht nur innerhalb einer bestimmten religiösen Gemeinschaft, sondern überhaupt Herr geworden ist, dass die décadence-Moral, der Wille zum Ende, als Moral an sich gilt, ist der unbedingte Werth, der dem Unegoistischen und die Feindschaft, die dem Egoistischen überall zu Theil wird."

"Meine Aufgabe, einen Augenblick höchster Selbstbesinnung der Menschheit vorzubereiten, einen grossen Mittag, wo sie zurückschaut und hinausschaut, wo sie aus der Herrschaft des Zufalls und der Priester heraustritt und die Frage des warum?, des wozu? zum ersten Male als Ganzes stellt —, diese Aufgabe folgt mit Nothwendigkeit aus der Einsicht, dass die Menschheit nicht von selber auf dem rechten Wege ist, dass sie durchaus nicht göttlich regiert wird, dass vielmehr gerade unter ihren heiligsten Werthbegriffen der Instinkt der Verneinung, der Verderbniss, der décadence-Instinkt verführerisch gewaltet hat."

"Nitimur in vetitum: in diesem Zeichen siegt einmal meine Philosophie, denn man verbot bisher grundsätzlich immer nur die Wahrheit."

"The instinct of negation, of corruption, the decadence-instinct, has been seductively at work, and precisely under humanity’s holiest value concepts."

"Sieht man genauer zu, so entdeckt man einen unbarmherzigen Geist, der alle Schlupfwinkel kennt, wo das Ideal heimisch ist,—wo es seine Burgverliesse und gleichsam seine letzte Sicherheit hat."