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

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

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.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Dancing, Relaxation, Dance

Even today a crude sort of persecution is all that is required to create an honorable name for any sect, no matter how indifferent in itself.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Oppression

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Wisdom

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Mistakes

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

Fear is the mother of morality.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Fear

Pathetic attitudes are not in keeping with greatness
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Attitude

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Boredom, Life, Courage

Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she forgets how to charm.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Hate

So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Praise

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Humility

A politician divides mankind into two classes; tools and enemies.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Politics, Politicians

The so called unconscious inferences can be traced back to the all-preserving memory, which presents us with parallel experiences and hence already knows the consequences of an action. It is not anticipation of the effects; rather, it is the feeling: identical causes, identical effects .
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Anticipation

Not the intensity but the duration of high feelings makes high men.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Wisdom

Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach honesty.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Cynicism, Honesty

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend’s emancipator.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Self-Discovery

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.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Perseverance, Truth

The elimination of the will altogether and the switching off of the emotions all and sundry, is tantamount to the elimination of reason: intellectual castration.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Reason

It is easier to cope with a bad conscience than with a bad reputation.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Conscience, Reputation

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Spirit

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Atheism

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Confidence

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a “new heaven” first found the power thereto in his own hell.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Paradise

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Actual philosophers… are commanders and law-givers: they say “thus it shall be!”, it is they who determine the Wherefore and Whither of mankind, and they possess for this task the preliminary work of all the philosophical laborers, of all those who have subdued the past—they reach for the future with creative hand, and everything that is or has been becomes for them a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their “knowing” is creating, their creating is a law giving, their will to truth is—will to power. Are their such philosophers today? Have there been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Philosophy

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Sleep

One should never know too precisely whom one has married.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Marriage

One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises that one makes.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Topics: Promises

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