On Nietzsche Quotes & Sayings

It's strange that in an age when we pride ourselves on our independence of thought we meekly submit without further question to the declaration of a clearly unbalanced nineteenth century philosopher that God is dead! That's cheeky, of course - and one rarely comes away from reading Nietzsche without learning something new and significant. He's certainly FAR more unsettling for faith than any contemporary atheist I know of. — George Pattison

Main thought! The individual himself is a fallacy. Everything which happens in us is in itself something else which we do not know. 'The individual' is merely a sum of conscious feelings and judgments and misconceptions, a belief, a piece of the true life system or many pieces thought together and spun together, a 'unity', that doesn't hold together. We are buds on a single tree - what do we know about what can become of us from the interests of the tree! But we have a consciousness as though we would and should be everything, a phantasy of 'I' and all 'not I.' Stop feeling oneself as this phantastic ego! Learn gradually to discard the supposed individual! Discover the fallacies of the ego! Recognize egoism as fallacy! The opposite is not to be understood as altruism! This would be love of other supposed individuals! No! Get beyond 'myself' and 'yourself'! Experience cosmically! — Friedrich Nietzsche

On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not only the grape turns brown, the eye of the sun just fell upon my life: I looked back, I looked forward, and never saw so many and such good things at once. It was not for nothing that I buried my forty-fourth year today; I had the right to bury it; whatever was life in it has been saved, is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of All Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer - all presents of this year, indeed of its last quarter! How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life? - and so I tell my life to myself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

French philosopher whom professional philosophers generally accord highest honors is Descartes. Montaigne and Pascal, Voltaire and Rousseau, Bergson and Sartre do not enjoy their greatest vogue among philosophers, and of these only Rousseau has had any considerable influence on the history of philosophy (through Kant and Hegel). — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is great advantage to be gained in distantly estranging ourselves from our age and for once being driven as it were away from its shores back on to the ocean of the world-outlooks of the past. Looking back at the coast from this distance we command a view, no doubt for the first time, of its total configuration, and when we approach it again we have the advantage of understanding it better as a whole than those who have never left it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Books and drafts mean something quite different for different thinkers. One collects in a book the lights he was able to steal and carry home swiftly out of the rays of some insight that suddenly dawned on him, while another thinker offers us nothing but shadows - images in black and grey of what had built up in his soul the day before. — Friedrich Nietzsche

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. And woe to that fatal curiosity which might one day have the power to peer out and down through a crack in the chamber of consciousness and then suspect that man is sustained in the indifference of his ignorance by that which is pitiless, greedy, insatiable, and murderous-as if hanging in dreams on the back of a tiger. Given this situation, where in the world could the drive for truth have come from? Insofar as the individual wants to maintain — Friedrich Nietzsche

To what extent the machine abases us. - The machine is impersonal, it deprives the piece of work of its pride, of the individual goodness and faultiness that adheres to all work done by a machine - that is to say, of its little bit of humanity. In earlier times all purchasing from artisans was a bestowing of a distinction on individuals, and the things with which we surrounded ourselves were the insignia of these distinctions: household furniture and clothing thus became symbols of mutual esteem and personal solidarity, whereas we now seem to live in the midst of nothing but anonymous and impersonal slavery. - We must not purchase the alleviation of work at too high price. — Friedrich Nietzsche

If tolerance poses as a middle road between rejection on the one side and assimilation on the other, this road, as already suggested, is paved by necessity rather than virtue; tolerance, as Nietzsche would say, becomes a virtue only retroactively and retrospectively. — Wendy Brown

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Comparing man and woman on the whole, one may say: woman would not possess a genius for ornamentation if she did not also possessan instinct for the secondary role. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The question of place and climate is most closely related to the question of nutrition. Nobody is free to live everywhere; and whoever has to solve great problems that challenge all his strength actually has a very restricted choice in this matter. The influence of climate on our metabolism, its retardation, its acceleration, goes so far that a mistaken choice of place and climate can not only estrange a man from his task but can actually keep it from him: he never gets to see it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — Friedrich Nietzsche

What we experience in dreams - assuming that we experience it often - belongs in the end just as much to the over-all economy of our soul as anything experienced "actually": we are richer or poorer on account of it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Honor to the government, and obedience, and also to the crooked government! So desires good sleep. How can I help it, if power likes to walk on crooked legs? — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche says very clearly all the way through his career that if you want to define human nature the first thing you must say is that human beings insist on value
we see the world through value colored eyes. We do not know how to look at things neutrally, value-free. So, it's not a question of giving up all values, it's simply a question of which values. — Robert C. Solomon

Since Copernicus, man seems to have got himself on an inclined plane-now he is slipping faster and faster away from the center into-what? into nothingness? into a 'penetrating sense of his nothingness?' ... all science, natural as well as unnatural-which is what I call the self-critique of knowledge-has at present the object of dissuading man from his former respect for himself, as if this had been but a piece of bizarre conceit. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When man does not have firm, calm lines on the horizon of his life- mountain and forest lines, as it were- then a man's innermost will becomes agitated, preoccupied, and wistful. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In the philosopher, on the contrary, there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS, - that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When our brain feels too weak to deal with our opponent's objections, our heart answers by casting suspicion on their underlying motives. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Faced with a world of "modern ideas" which would like to banish everyone into a corner and a "specialty," a philosopher, if there could be a philosopher these days, would be compelled to establish the greatness of mankind, the idea of "greatness," on the basis of his own particular extensive range and multiplicity, his own totality in the midst of diversity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I became the stage for the great argument between Nietzsche and Rousseau. I was the extra ready to take on all the roles. — Jacques Derrida

Read from a distant star, the majuscule script of our earthly existence would perhaps lead to the conclusion that the earth was the distinctively ascetic planet, a nook of disgruntled, arrogant creatures filled with a profound disgust with themselves, at the earth, at all life, who inflict as much pain on themselves as they possibly can out of pleasure in inflicting pain which is probably their only pleasure. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I caught this insight on the way and quickly seized the rather poor words that were closest to hand to pin it down lest it fly away again. And now it has died of these arid words and shakes and flaps in them
and I hardly know anymore when I look at it how I could ever have felt so happy when I caught this bird. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Emerson is a person who lives instinctively on ambrosia - and leaves everything indigestible on his plate. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Every kind of perfection is purchased at a high price on earth, where everything is perhaps purchased too dear; one is an expert in one's department at the price of being also a victim of one's department. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When on a Sunday morning we hear the old bells ring out, we ask ourselves, "Is it possible! This is done on account of a Jew crucified two thousand years ago who said he was the Son of God. The proof of such an assertion is wanting". — Friedrich Nietzsche

Today? - "I don't know either the way out or the way in; I am whatever doesn't know either the way out or the way in" - so sighs the man of today ... This is the sort of modernity that made us ill, - we sickened on lazy peace, cowardly compro mise, the whole virtuous dirtiness of the modern Yea and Nay. This tolerance and largeur of the heart that "forgives" everything because it "understands" everything is a sirocco to us. Rather live amid the ice than among modern virtues and other — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is something the child sees that he does not see; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this something is the most important thing of all. Because he does not understand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's and more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever wrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers in unravelling the knots. — Friedrich Nietzsche

May heaven have mercy on the European intellect if one wanted to subtract the Jewish intellect from it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Zarathustra, however, answered thus unto him who so spake: When one taketh his hump from the hunchback, then doth one take from him his spirit - so do the people teach. And when one giveth the blind man eyes, then doth he see too many bad things on the earth: so that he
curseth him who healed him. He, however, who maketh the lame man run, inflicteth upon him the greatest in him - so do the people teach concerning cripples — Friedrich Nietzsche

Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be sinning. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Life is more than thought: what a man feels, and what his senses awaken in him, are more indispensable to his life's fullness than subsequent reflection on their significance. Both Stirner and Nietzsche have elaborated Faust's opening speech in which he bemoans his wasted years in academia: this speech is Goethe's own impeachment of Kant and Hegel . Philosophy proceeds always under the risk of making a fetish of thinking. — John Carroll

They will tell me I talk about things I have never experienced but only dreamed
to which I might reply: it is a lovely thing to dream such dreams! And besides, our dreams are much more our experiences than we believe
we must relearn about dreams! If I have dreamed thousands of times about flying
would you not believe that when I am awake I also possess feelings and needs giving me an edge on most people
and ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

Because fulfillment is an illusion, the wise must devote themselves to avoiding pain rather than seeking pleasure, living quietly, as Schopenhauer counseled, 'in a small fireproof room' - advice that now struck Nietzsche as both timid and untrue, a perverse attempt to dwell, as he was to put it pejoratively several years later, 'hidden in forests like shy deer.' Fulfillment was to be reached not by avoiding pain, but by recognizing its role as a natural, inevitable step on the way to reaching anything good. — Alain De Botton

Well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have not come to be honored on account of their usefulness, but because they are states of richer souls that are capable of bestowing and have their value in the feeling of the plenitude of life. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I have a serious question."
"I will give a serious answer."
"Can a god be killed?"
The humor drained from Roman's face. "Well, that depends on if you're a pantheist or a Marxist."
"What's the difference?"
"The first believes that divinity is the universe. The two are synonymous and nonexistent without each other. The second believes in anthropocentrism, seeing man in the center of the universe, and god as just an invention of human conscience. Of course, if you follow Nietzsche, you can kill God just by thinking about him. — Ilona Andrews

Friedrich Nietzsche got pretty hung up on the notion of human will; really all he needed were some running shoes, Lycra and a place in the Berlin Marathon. — Phil Hewitt

I no longer want to walk on worn soles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In all willing it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as already said, of a social structure composed of many "souls," on which account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing-as-such within the sphere of morals - regarded as the doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which the phenomenon of "life" manifests itself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Few things in life are certain, and one of them is that you can turn on the television at three in the morning and someone will be singing and dancing on the Indian channel. Proof of Nietzsche's theory of eternal recurrence. — Jessica Zafra

To Wrench the human soul from its moorings, to immerse it in terrors, ice, flames, and raptures to such an extent that it is liberated from all petty displeasure, gloom and depression as by a flash of lightening: what paths lead to this goal? And which of them do so most surely? — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is only great pain
that slow, sustained pain that takes its time, in which we are, as it were, burned with smoldering green firewood
that forces us philosophers to sink to our ultimate profundity and to do away with all the trust, everything good-natured, veil-imposing, mild and middling, on which we may have previously based our humanity. I doubt that such a pain makes us 'better'
but I know that it makes us deeper. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I went into the ministry to use the church to elicit political change according to a soft Marxist vision of wealth distribution and proletarian empowerment. Edrita [his wife] could sense that I was on a long and uncertain path. She was always more conservative than I, but she did share my basic social values and was willing at least to let me test my political follies ... Whenever I read the New Testament after 1950, I was trying to read it entirely without its crucial premises of incarnation and resurrection. That required a lot of circular reasoning for me to establish what the text said. I habitually assumed that truth in religion was finally reducible to economics (with Marx) or psychosexual motives (with Freud) or self assertive power (with Nietzsche). It was truly a self-deceptive time for me, but I had no inkling of its insidious dangers. — Thomas C. Oden

Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One had better put on gloves before handling the New Testament. The presence of so much filth makes it highly advisable. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Sleep knocks on my eyes: they grow heavy. Sleep touches my mouth: it stays open.
Truly, he comes to me on soft soles, the dearest of thieves, and steals my thoughts from me — Friedrich Nietzsche

Years ago, it had occurred to me that Darwin and Nietzsche agreed on one thing: the defining characteristic of the organism is striving. Describing — Paul Kalanithi

The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge. — Friedrich Nietzsche

So far there has been no philosopher in whose hands philosophy has not grown into an apology for knowledge; on this point, at least, every one is an optimist, that the greatest usefulness must be ascribed to knowledge. They are all tyrannized over by logic, and this is optimism in its essence. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends on how you use them. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind. — Friedrich Nietzsche

I do not refute ideals, I merely put on gloves when I deal with them ... — Friedrich Nietzsche

Zarathustra saw many lands and many peoples: thus he discovered the good and evil of many peoples. No greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than good and evil. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When I came to men, then found I them resting on an old infatuation: all of them thought they had long known what was good and bad for men. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One pays dearly for any kind of mastery on earth, where perhaps one pays too dearly for everything; one is master of one's trade at the price of also being its victim. — Friedrich Nietzsche

New ways I go, a new speech comes to me; weary I grow, like all creators, of the old tongues. My spirit no longer wants to walk on worn soles. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Thus spoke the devil to me once: "God too has his hell: it is his love of man." ... And most recently I heard him speak this word: "God is dead: God died of his pity for man." - On the Pitying — Friedrich Nietzsche

We see that science also rests on faith; there is simply no science "without presuppositions — Friedrich Nietzsche

On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection - most dreams are bungled - the are symbolic chains of scene and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed when we remember our dreams. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The last Christian died on a cross. — Friedrich Nietzsche

- very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions - ? Rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche said we will never rid ourselves of God because we have too much faith in grammar/language.

Lacan said because of the religious tenets of language, religion will triumph.

Chomsky, master linguist, says 'there are no skeptics. You can discuss it in a philosophy seminar but no human being can - in fact - be a skeptic.'

These musings shed light on Soren K's leap to faith idea. This is more nuanced than the circular leap of faith argument he's been wrongly accused of...

Soren is saying that, as we use the logic of language to express existence and purpose, we will always leap TO faith in a superior, all encompassing, loving force that guides our lives.

This faith does not negate our reason. It simply implies that the reasoning of this superior force is superior to our own. Edwin Abbott crystalizes this in Flatland. — Chester Elijah Branch

Live dangerously. Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Marlowe grinned. That so? I couldn't disagree more. Is that Nietzsche talking? Ah, the Germans. We have a factory in Germany, you know. Actually, Germany is a fine example, so let's take Germany: They were crushed in the Great War. Their debt was staggering. A pound of bread cost nearly three billion Marks! The Reichsmark was practically worthless - you'd have better luck papering your house with it than trying to buy goods or pay your bills. But Marlowe Industries is going to help them get on their feet. We're going to change the world. — Libba Bray

It was 1988, and I was just finishing a D.Phil at Oxford University on the topic of 'Nietzsche and German Idealism.' — Matthew Stewart

As Nietzsche wrote, "The value of a thing sometimes lies not in what one attains with it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us." Perhaps you will attain your goal, and a worthy goal at that, but at what price? Apply this standard to everything, including whether to collaborate with other people or come to their aid. In the end, life is short, opportunities are few, and you have only so much energy to draw on. And in this sense time is as important a consideration as any other. Never waste valuable time, or mental peace of mind, on the affairs of others - that is too high a price to pay. Power — Robert Greene

I am not upset that you lied to me, I am upset that from now on I cannot believe you. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We evaluate the services that anyone renders to us according to the value he puts on them, not according to the value they have for us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In the superman Nietzsche gave the world a conceivable and possible goal for all human effort. But there still remained a problem and it was this: When the superman at last appears on earth, what then? Will there be another super-superman to follow and another super-super-superman after that? In the end, will man become the equal of the creator of the universe, whoever or whatever He may be? Or will a period of decline come after, with return down the long line, through the superman down to man again, and then on to the anthropoid ape, to the lower mammals, to the asexual cell, and, finally, to mere inert matter, gas, ether, and empty space? — H.L. Mencken

Zarathustra calls the good "the last men" and then 'the beginning of the end"; and above all he considers them as the most harmful kind of men because they secure their existence at the cost of Truth and at the cost of the Future. "The good - they cannot create; they are always the beginning of the end. They crucify him who writes new values on new law tables; they sacrifice the future to themselves; they crucify the whole future of humanity! The good - they are always the beginning of the end. And whatever harm the slanderers of the world may do, the harm of the good is the most harmful of all". — 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

The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking - that I KNOW what thinking is. — Friedrich Nietzsche

So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Art is the activity that exalts and denies simultaneously. "No artist tolerates reality," says Nietzsche. That
is true, but no artist can get along without reality. Artistic creation is a demand for unity and a rejection of
the world. But it rejects the world on account of what it lacks and in the name of what it sometimes is.
Rebellion can be observed here in its pure state and in its original complexities. Thus art should give us a
final perspective on the content of rebellion. — Albert Camus

When we observe how some people know how to manage their experiences
their insignificant, everyday experiences
so that they become an arable soil that bears fruit three times a year, while others
and how many there are!
are driven through surging waves of destiny, the most multifarious currents of the times and the nations, and yet always remain on top, bobbing like a cork, then we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Are you one who looks on? or lends a hand? - or who looks away, sidles off? ... Third question for the conscience. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross. — Friedrich Nietzsche

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! — Friedrich Nietzsche

He does not wear a twitching, mobile, human face, but rather a mask, as it were, with its features in dignified equilibrium; he does not shout, nor does he even change his tone of voice. If a veritable storm-cloud empties itself on his head, he wraps himself in his cloak and slowly walks away from under it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

To go on vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations, after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, that ought to prompt a profound contempt in society. — Friedrich Nietzsche

But grant me from time to time - if there are divine goddesses in the realm beyond good and evil - grant me the sight, but one glance of something perfect, wholly achieved, happy, mighty, triumphant, something still capable of arousing fear! Of a man who justifies man, of a complementary and redeeming lucky hit on the part of man for the sake of which one may still believe in man! — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche's break with Schopenhauer rests on precisely this point; it is a matter of knowing whether the will is unitary or multiple. — Gilles Deleuze

Do you want to go along with others? or go on ahead? or go off on your own? ... you must know what you want and that you want. Fourth question for the conscience. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face of the earth and not even as a traveller towards a final goal, for there is no such thing. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Socialism is nihilistic, in the henceforth precise sense that Nietzsche confers on the word. A nihilist is not one who believes in nothing, but one who does not believe in what exists. — Albert Camus

If I continued to harbour any hope for music it lay in the expectation that a musician might come who was sufficiently bold, subtle, malicious, southerly, superhealthy to confront that music and in an immortal fashion take revenge on it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There did he sit shrivelled in his chimney corner, fretting on account of his weak legs, world weary, will weary, and one day he suffocated through his excessive pity. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The problem, however, is that I have yet to meet anyone, materialist or otherwise, who was able to dispense with value judgements. On the contrary, the literature of materialism is peculiarly marked by its wholesale profusion of denunciations of all sorts. Starting with Marx and Nietzsche, materialists have never been able to refrain from passing continuous moral judgement on all and sundry, which their whole philosophy might be expected to discourage them from doing. — Luc Ferry

Many lands saw Zarathustra, and many peoples: no greater power did Zarathustra find on earth than the creations of the loving ones - "good" and "bad" are they called. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We think too fast, even while walking or on the way, or while engaged in other things, no matter how serious the subject. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The craft, trade, agriculture, science, a large part of the art - all this can only stand on a broad base , on a consolidated, strong and healthy mediocrity. Served in their services and the science of their work - and even the arts. We cannot wish for better: it belongs to such an average sort of person - it is under displace exceptions - it has nothing aristocratic about something and still les in their anarchic instincts - The power of the center is then held upright by the trade, especially the money market: the instinct of great financiers goes against all extremes, - the Jews are the reason for the time being conserve power in our so insecure and threatened Europe. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The freaking Leanansidhe, deputy of Her Wickedness, with her Nietzsche and Darwin Were Sentimental Pansies outlook on life — Jim Butcher

He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays and tragic realities. Courageous, — Friedrich Nietzsche

We live to produce information, or improve on it. Nietzsche had the Latin pun aut liberi, aut libri - either children or books, both information that caries through the centuries ... I am here to die a heroic death for the sake of the collective, to produce offspring (and prepare them for life and provide for them), or eventually, books, - my information, that is, my genes, the anti-fragile in me, should be the ones seeking immortality, not me. Then say goodbye, have a nice funeral in St. Sergius (Mar Sarkis) in Amioun, and, as the French say, place aux autres - make room for others (p. 370-371). — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous - a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Learn to see - accustoming the eye to calm, to patience, to letting-things-come-to-it; learning to defer judgment, to encircle and encompass the question on all sides. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We do not by any means think it desirable that the kingdom of righteousness and peace should be established on earth (because under any circumstances it would be the kingdom of the profoundest mediocrity and Chinaism); we rejoice in all men, who like ourselves love danger, war and adventure, who do not make compromises, nor let themselves be captured, conciliated and stunted; we count ourselves among the conquerors; we ponder over the need of a new order of things, even of a new slavery for every strengthening and elevation of the type "man" also involves a new form of slavery. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We sleepwalkers of the day! We artists! We who conceal naturalness! We who are moon- and God-struck! We untiring wanderers, silent as death, on heights that we see not as heights but as our plains, as our safety. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling. — Friedrich Nietzsche