Nietzsche Best Quotes & Sayings

History teaches that a race of people is best preserved where the greater number hold one common spirit in consequence of the similarity of their accustomed and indisputable principles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Love your enemies because they bring out the best in you. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The great periods of our life occur when we gain the courage to rechristen what is bad about us as what is best. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best friend will probably acquire the best wife, because a good marriage is founded on the talent for friendship. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I feel all those human beings to be pernicious who can no longer oppose what they love: they thereby ruin the best things and people. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One is punished best for one's virtues. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If thinking is your fate, revere this fate with divine honour and sacrifice to it the best, the most beloved — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men! — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best of all things is something entirely outside your grasp: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best thing for you is to die soon. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Once the decision has been made, close your ear even to the best counter argument: sign of a strong character. Thus an occasional will to stupidity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is, indeed, a fact that, in the midst of society and sociability every evil inclination has to place itself under such great restraint, don so many masks, lay itself so often on the procrustean bed of virtue, that one could well speak of a martyrdom of the evil man. In solitude all this falls away. He who is evil is at his most evil in solitude: which is where he is at his best - and thus to the eye of him who sees everywhere only a spectacle also at his most beautiful. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to rebaptize our badness as the best in us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don't throw away the best of yourself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One does not know - cannot know - the best that is in one. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Courage is the best slayer - courage which attacketh, for in every attack there is the sound of triumph. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Precisely the least thing, the gentlest, lightest, the rustling of a lizard, a breath, a moment, a twinkling of the eye - little makes up the quality of the best happiness. Soft! — Friedrich Nietzsche

A little health now and again is the ailing person's best remedy. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our "hospitality" for instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes a vice. One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF - the best test of independence. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best belongs to me and mine; and if we are not given it, we take it: the best food, the purest sky, the most robust thoughts, the fairest women! — Friedrich Nietzsche

And he will also find the little god whom girls like best: beside the well he lies, still, with his eyes shut. Verily, in bright daylight he fell asleep, the sluggard! Did he chase after the butterflies too much? ... He may cry and weep - but he is laughable even when he weeps. And with tears in his eyes he shall ask you for a dance and I myself will sing a song for his dance: a dancing and mocking song on the spirit of gravity ... (p.108 - The Dancing Song) — Friedrich Nietzsche

We have to be careful that in throwing out the devil, we don't throw out the best part of ourselves. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Hold a true friend with both your hands. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Women are still cats and birds. Or at the best, cows. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Our vanity would have just that which we do best count as that which is hardest for us. The origin of many a morality. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A man recovers best from his exceptional nature - his intellectuality - by giving his animal instincts a chance. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One must cease letting oneself be eaten when one tastes best: that is known to those who want to be loved long. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Happy one Is to have fine senses and a fine taste.. To be accustomed to the select and intellectually best..to be blessed with a strong bold and daring soul..to go through life with a quiet eye and a firm step, ever ready for the worst as for the festival, and full of longing for undiscovered worlds and seas, men and Gods — Fredrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche, in a rare moment of deep stillness, wrote, For happiness, how little suffices for happiness! ... the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still. — Eckhart Tolle

is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Among such persons are those women who transform themselves into just that function of a man that is but weakly developed in him, and then become his purse, or his politics, or his social intercourse. Such beings maintain themselves best when they insert themselves in an alien organism; if they do not succeed they become vexed, irritated, and eat themselves up. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Physician, help yourself: thus help your patient too. Let this be his best help: that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Really unreflective people are now inwardly without Christianity, and the more moderate and reflective people of the intellectual middle class now possess only an adapted, that is to say marvelously simplified Christianity. A god who in his love arranges everything in a manner that in the end will be best for us; a god who gives to us and takes from us our virtue and our happiness, so that as a whole all is meet and fit and there is no reason for us to take life sadly, let alone exclaim against it; in short, resignation and modest demands elevated to godhead — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Examine the life of the best and most productive men and nations, and ask yourselves whether a tree which is to grow proudly skywards can dispense with bad weather and storms. Whether misfortune and opposition, or every kind of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, distrust, severity, greed, and violence do not belong to the favourable conditions without which a great growth even of virtue is hardly possible? — Friedrich Nietzsche

I do not mean to moralise but to those who do, I would give this advice : if you mean ultimately to deprive the best things and states of all all honour and worth then continue to talk about them as you have been doing! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose. — Friedrich Nietzsche

My taste, which may be the opposite of a tolerant taste, is in this case very far from saying Yes indiscriminately: it does not like to say Yes;better to say No, but best of all to say nothing. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Apart from all theology and its contentions, it is quite clear that the world is not good and not bad (to say nothing of its being the best or the worst), and that the terms "good" and "bad" have only significance with respect to man, and indeed, perhaps, they are not justified even here in the way they are usually employed; in any case we must get rid of both the calumniating and the glorifying conception of the world. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Stay not where the lowlands are! Climb not into the sky! The world looks best by far when viewed from halfway high. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial - as the real artists of life do. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower. — Friedrich Nietzsche

What does it matter whether I am shown to be right! I am right too much!
And he who laughs best today will also laugh last. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies, bullfights, and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself, behold, that was his very heaven. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best ... Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their 'nature,' to their god ... Finally, what was left to be sacrificed? Didn't people have to sacrifice god himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves? — Friedrich Nietzsche

The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Learning from one's enemies is the best way to love them, for it puts one into a grateful mood toward them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We, however, want to become those we are
human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves. To that end we must become the best learners and discoverers of everything that is lawful and necessary in the world: we must become physicists in order to be able to be creators in this sense
while hitherto all valuations and ideals have been based on ignorance of physics or were constructed so as to contradict it. Therefore: long live physics! And even more so that which compels us to turn to physics
our honesty! — Friedrich Nietzsche

In being wildly natural we recover best from being unnatural, from being spiritual. — Friedrich Nietzsche

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

In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To put up with people, to keep open house with one's heart - that is liberal, but that is merely liberal. One recognizes those hearts which are capable of noble hospitality by the many draped windows and closed
shutters, they keep their best rooms empty. Why? Because they expect guests with whom one does not "put up. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Of two quite lofty things, measure and moderation, it is best never to speak. A few know their force and significance, from the mysterious paths of inner experiences and conversions: they honor in them something quite godlike, and are afraid to speak aloud. All the rest hardly listen when they are spoken about, and think the subjects under discussion are tedium and mediocrity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Best thing in a great victory is that it deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I am not angry with anybody. But when I am alone it seems to me that I can see my friends in a clearer and rosier light than when I am with them; and when I loved and felt music best I lived far from it. It would seem that I must have distant perspectives in order that I may think well of things. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Do you suppose that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?
Just stop to consider whether sacrifice is not involved in every action that is done with deliberation, the worst as well as the best. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The best way to give assistance to those who are deeply embarrassed and to calm them down is to praise them decisively. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche clamored for a
Roman Caesar with the soul of Christ. To his mind, this was to say yes to both slave and master. But, in
the last analysis, to say yes to both was to give one's blessing to the stronger of the two - namely, the
master. Caesar must inevitably renounce the domination of the mind and choose to rule in the realm of
fact. "How can one make the best of crime?" asks Nietzsche, as a good professor faithful to his system.
Caesar must answer: by multiplying it. "When the ends are great," Nietzsche wrote to his own detriment,
"humanity employs other standards and no longer judges crime as such even if it resorts to the most
frightful means." He died in 1900, at the beginning of the century in which that pretension was to become
fatal. — Albert Camus

Independence is for the very few; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it even with the best right but without inner constraint proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring to the point of recklessness. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In the world even the best things are worthless without those who represent them: those representers, the people call great men. Little — Friedrich Nietzsche

Certainly one quality which nowadays has been best forgotten - and that is why it will take some time yet for my writings to become readable - is essential in order to practise reading as an art - a quality for the exercise of which it is necessary to be a cow, and under no circumstances a modern man! - rumination. SILS-MARIA, UPPER ENGADINE, July, 1887. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To learn from our enemies is the best pathway to loving them: for it makes us grateful to them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

After a Great Victory.-The best thing in a great victory is that it deprives the conqueror of the fear of defeat. " Why should I not be worsted for once ? " he says to himself, " I am now rich enough to stand it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Rendering oneself unarmed when one had been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling-that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Perhaps I am even envious of Stendhal? He robbed me of the best atheist joke which precisely I could have made: 'God's only excuse is that he does not exist' ... I myself have said somewhere: what hitherto been the greatest objection to existence? God ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifices for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, "We break the sword," and will smash its entire military establishment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best-armed, out of a height of feeling - that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind; whereas the so-called armed peace, as it now exists in all countries, is the absence of peace of mind. One trusts neither oneself nor one's neighbor and, half from hatred, half from fear, does not lay down arms. Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared - this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth, too. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In a friend one should have ones best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The woman and the genius do not work. Up to now, woman has been mankind's supreme luxury. In all those moments when we do our best, we do not work. Work is merely a means to these moments. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best happiness. — Friedrich Nietzsche

O happiness! O happiness! Wilt thou perhaps sing, O my soul? Thou liest in the grass. But this is the secret, solemn hour, when no shepherd playeth his pipe.

Take care! Hot noontide sleepeth on the fields. Do not sing! Hush! The world is perfect.

Do not sing, thou prairie-bird, my soul! Do not even whisper! Lo - hush! The old noontide sleepeth, it moveth its mouth: doth it not just now drink a drop of happiness -

- An old brown drop of golden happiness, golden wine? Something whisketh over it, its happiness laugheth. Thus - laugheth a God. Hush!

"For happiness, how little sufficeth for happiness!" Thus spoke I once and thought myself wise. But it was a blasphemy: that have I now learned. Wise fools speak better.

The least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a whisk, an eye-glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Hush! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's vision of the superman is of someone who's able to control and tame his passions and turn them into something richer than raw emotion and raw feeling. I think the best writing does that too. Untamed passion basically results in bad writing or bad polemics, which so many writers and public intellectuals are vulnerable to. — Pankaj Mishra

Life consists of rare, isolated moments of the greatest significance, and of innumerable many intervals, during which at best the silhouettes of those moments hover about us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Physician, heal thyself: then wilt thou also heal thy patient. Let it be his best cure to see with his eyes him who maketh himself whole. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Worldly Wisdom
Do not stay in the field!
Nor climb out of sight.
The best view of the world
Is from a medium height. — Friedrich Nietzsche

My dear friend, what is this our life? A boat that swims in the sea, and all one knows for certain about it is that one day it will capsize. Here we are, two good old boats that have been faithful neighbors, and above all your hand has done its best to keep me from "capsizing"! Let us then continue our voyage - each for the other's sake, for a long time yet, a long time! We should miss each other so much! Tolerably calm seas and good winds and above all sun - what I wish for myself, I wish for you, too, and am sorry that my gratitude can find expression only in such a wish and has no influence at all on wind or weather! — Friedrich Nietzsche