Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, scholar, and writer. His brilliant, unconventional works, often aphoristic or poetical in form, have secured him an immense, if cultish, influence in contemporary intellectual history.

Born in Röcken, Saxony, Prussia, to a clergyman, Nietzsche studied Greek and Latin at Bonn and Leipzig. In 1869, he was appointed to the chair of classical philology at Basel but resigned after nine years of deteriorating bouts of psychosomatic illnesses. He spent the next ten years at resorts in France, Italy, and Switzerland writing and trying to recuperate.

In 1879, Nietzsche abandoned philology for philosophy and, over the next decade, worked out his philosophy on the freedom of the individual. The core of Nietzsche’s work was to find meaning and morality in the absence of God. He contended that the Christian system of faith and worship was not only incorrect but also detrimental to society because it allowed the weak to rule the strong. In other words, Christian philosophy repressed the will to power, which was the driving force of human character.

In his most celebrated work, Thus Spake Zarathustra (German: Also Sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen; 1893–91,) Nietzsche presented his conception of the Übermensch (‘Superman,’) who transcends slavish Christianity and rises above the restrictions of ordinary morality through his creative “will to power.” The Nazi party misappropriated this concept of the idealized man who is strong, positive, and able to impose his wishes upon the weak and worthless.

Nietzsche’s other renowned works include Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse; 1886) and On the Genealogy of Morality (Zur Genealogie der Moral; 1887.) His autobiography, Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is (Ecce homo: Wie man wird, was man ist) was completed in 1888, but withheld by his sister and published only in 1908.

In 1889, Nietzsche had a complete mental and physical breakdown. He was nursed for the next 12 years by his mother and his sister but never recovered his sanity.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Friedrich Nietzsche

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Experience

Either you reach a higher point today, or you exercise your strength in order to be able to climb higher tomorrow.
—Friedrich Nietzsche

Man’s maturity: to have regained the seriousness that he had as a child at play.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Maturity

But tell me: how did gold get to be the highest value? Because it is uncommon and useless and gleaming and gentle in its brilliance; it always gives itself. Only as an image of the highest virtue did gold get to be the highest value. The giver’s glance gleams like gold. A golden brilliance concludes peace between the moon and the sun. Uncommon is the highest virtue and useless, it is gleaming and gentle in its brilliance: a gift-giving virtue is the highest virtue.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Money

Society tames the wolf into a dog. And man is the most domesticated animal of all.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Society

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Beliefs, Certainty, Belief, Change, Truth, Attitude

The lie is a condition of life.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Lies

What is the seal of attained freedom? -No longer being ashamed in front of oneself.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Love, Shame, Freedom

If we have our own why of life, we shall get along with almost any how. Man does not strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Determination

To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Excellence

Many a man fails to become a thinker for the sole reason that his memory is too good.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Memory

Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Aspirations, Hope

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Books, Morals, Morality, Reading

I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Lies

Art is the highest task and proper metaphysical activity of this life.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Art

One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Lies, Deception/Lying

Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Dance, Writing, Dancing

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Opinions

The doctrine of equality! There exists no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Equality

Man… cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Past, Time, The Past

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Laughter

The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Reason, Truth, Thought

Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Pregnancy

And be on they guard against the good and the just! They would fain curcify those who devise their own virtue—they hate the lonesome ones.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Virtue

Nothing seems to me to be rarer today then genuine hypocrisy. I greatly suspect that this plant finds the mild atmosphere of our culture unendurable. Hypocrisy has its place in the ages of strong belief: in which even when one is compelled to exhibit a different belief one does not abandon the belief one already has.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Hypocrisy

There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are—more humane.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: God, Religion

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Individuality, Originality

What is happiness?-The feeling that power increases-that resistance is overcome.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Happiness

All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Punishment

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Feelings

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