Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
— Friedrich Nietzsche
All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. Yet his shadow still looms. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives; who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves?
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
The future influences the present just as much as the past.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
Art is the proper task of life.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Without music, life would be a mistake.
We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
Fear is the mother of morality.
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
And 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.
A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Woman was God's second mistake.
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
