Friedrich Nietzsche
Tuesday, 11 February 2025Published in 1882, Friedrich Nietzsche was quoted to say The Gay Science was the most personal of all his books. It contains more poems than any of Nietzsche's other published works.
Even the most beautiful scenery is no longer assured of our love after we have lived in it for three months, and some distant coast attracts our avarice: possessions are generally diminished by possession...
The Gay Science (1882)
Nietzsche Quotes
It is true that there are men who, on the approach of severe pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear more proud, more martial, or more happy than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These are the heroic men, the great pain-bringers of mankind: those few and rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally - and verily, it should not be denied them. They are forces of the greatest importance for preserving and advancing the species, be it only because they are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this kind of happiness.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 318
Nietzsche Quotes
Whatever has value in our world now does not have value in itself, according to its nature - nature is always value-less, but has been given value at some time, as a present - and it was we who gave and bestowed it.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 302
Nietzsche Quotes
We have no dreams at all or interesting ones. We should learn to be awake the same way - not at all or in an interesting manner.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 232
Nietzsche Quotes
One kind of honesty has been unknown to all founders of religions and their likes -- they have never made of their experiences a matter of conscience and knowledge. "What did I really experience? What happened in me and around me then? Was my mind sufficiently alert? Was my will bent against fantasy?" -- none of them has asked such questions, none of our dear religious people asks such questions even now: they feel, rather, a thirst for things which are contrary to reason and do not put too many difficulties in the way of satisfying it -- thus they experience "miracles" and "rebirths" and hear the voices of angels!
The Gay Science, (1882)
Nietzsche Quotes
We want to be poets of our life - first of all in the smallest most everyday matters.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 299
Nietzsche Quotes
The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 29
Nietzsche Quotes
Perhaps man will rise ever higher as soon as he ceases to flow out into a god.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 285
Nietzsche Quotes
New Domestic Animals. I want to have my lion and my eagle about me, that I may always have hints and premonitions concerning the amount of my strength or weakness. Must I look down on them today, and be afraid of them? And will the hour come once more when they will look up to me, and tremble?
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 250
Nietzsche Quotes
After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave -- a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. -- And we -- we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
The Gay Science, p. 108, Walter Kaufmann transl.
Nietzsche Quotes
Everything good, fine or great they do is first of all an argument against the skeptic inside them.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 284
Nietzsche Quotes
Those who deny chance. - 'No victor believes in chance.'
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 258.
Nietzsche Quotes
For believe me! - the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer! At long last the search for knowledge will reach out for its due: - it will want to rule and possess, and you with it!
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 283
Nietzsche Quotes
There is something laughable about the sight of authors who enjoy the rustling folds of long and involved sentences: they are trying to cover up their feet.
The Gay Science (1882). Sec. 282
Nietzsche Quotes
Where the poor power of the eye can no longer see the evil impulse as such because it has become too subtle, man posits the realm of goodness; and the feeling that we have now entered the realm of goodness excites all those impulses which had been threatened and limited by the evil impulses, like the feeling of security, of comfort, of benevolence. Hence, the duller the eye, the more extensive the good. Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the common people and of children. Hence the gloominess and grief - akin to a bad conscience - of the great thinkers.
The Gay Science
Nietzsche Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche Quote of the Day
Tuesday, 11 February 2025One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.Human, All Too Human (1878). I.59