Friedrich Nietzsche
Saturday, 14 December 2024
A miscellaneous collection of Nietzschean quotes from his works, letters and unpublished notes.
Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Notebooks, (Summer 1886 - Autumn 1887)
Nietzsche Quotes
What does man actually know about himself? Is he, indeed, ever able to perceive himself completely, as if laid out in a lighted display case? Does nature not conceal most things from him - even concerning his own body - in order to confine and lock him within a proud, deceptive consciousness, aloof from the coils of the bowels, the rapid flow of the blood stream, and the intricate quivering of the fibers! She threw away the key.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my centre is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist, for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me - it was the most severe test of my character.
Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887)
Nietzsche Quotes
Are designations congruent with things? Is language the adequate expression of all realities? It is only by means of forgetfulness that man can ever reach the point of fancying himself to possess a "truth" of the grade just indicated. If he will not be satisfied with truth in the form of tautology, that is to say, if he will not be content with empty husks, then he will always exchange truths for illusions.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
We believe that we know something about the things themselves when we speak of trees, colors, snow, and flowers; and yet we possess nothing but metaphors for things - metaphors which correspond in no way to the original entities.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Nachlass
Nietzsche Quotes
We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
We have seen how it is originally language which works on the construction of concepts, a labor taken over in later ages by science. Just as the bee simultaneously constructs cells and fills them with honey, so science works unceasingly on this great columbarium of concepts, the graveyard of perceptions.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
Whereas the man of action binds his life to reason and its concepts so that he will not be swept away and lost, the scientific investigator builds his hut right next to the tower of science so that he will be able to work on it and to find shelter for himself beneath those bulwarks which presently exist. And he requires shelter, for there are frightful powers which continuously break in upon him, powers which oppose scientific "truth" with completely different kinds of "truths" which bear on their shields the most varied sorts of emblems.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
Because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people - the ancient Greeks, for instance - more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
Man has an invincible inclination to allow himself to be deceived and is, as it were, enchanted with happiness when the rhapsodist tells him epic fables as if they were true, or when the actor in the theater acts more royally than any real king. So long as it is able to deceive without injuring, that master of deception, the intellect, is free; it is released from its former slavery and celebrates its Saturnalia. It is never more luxuriant, richer, prouder, more clever and more daring.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
There are ages in which the rational man and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in fear of intuition, the other with scorn for abstraction. The latter is just as irrational as the former is inartistic. They both desire to rule over life: the former, by knowing how to meet his principle needs by means of foresight, prudence, and regularity; the latter, by disregarding these needs and, as an "overjoyed hero," counting as real only that life which has been disguised as illusion and beauty.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
Only sick music makes money today.
Der Fall Wagner, Section 5
Nietzsche Quotes
The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption - in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch.
On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
Nietzsche Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche Quote of the Day
Saturday, 14 December 2024The goal of mankind cannot lie in its end, but in its highest specimens.Thoughts Out of Season, Part II, Section 9
