WIST

With whom does the greatest danger for the whole human future lie? Is it not with the good and just? — with those who say and feel in their hearts: “We already know what is good and just, we possess it, too; woe to those who are still searching for it!”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
“Of Old and New Law-Tables” (26), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1892) [tr. Hollingdale (1961)]

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 (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

A very popular error — having the courage of your convictions. Rather, it is a matter of having the courage for an attack upon one’s convictions.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

He who has a strong enough why to live for, can bear almost any how.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

He who does not need to lie is proud of not being a liar.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

‘Every man has his price.’ This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice – and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

It is not so much the suffering as the senselessness of it that is unendurable.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

The most common sort of lie is the one uttered to one’s self.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

I could not believe in a God that could not dance.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher regard those who think alike than those who think differently.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

One is healthy when one can laugh at the earnestness and zeal with which one has been hypnotized by any single detail of one’s life.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

It is not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
(Attributed)

“I did this,” says my Memory. “I cannot have done this,” says my Pride, and remains inexorable. In the end — Memory yields.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Beyond Good and Evil [Jenseits von Gut und Böse], No. 68 (1886)
Frequently quoted by Freud.

The surest way of ruining a youth is to teach him to respect those who think as he does more highly than those who think differently from him.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Daybreak (1881) [tr. R.J. Hollingdale (1982)]

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Human, All Too Human (1878-86)

Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy’s staying alive.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Human, All Too Human, 531 (1878) [tr. M. Faber (1984)]

Any man who has once decared the other man to be a fool, a bad fellow, is annoyed when that man ends by showing that he is not.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Human, All Too Human, ch. 90 (1878) [tr Faber (1984)]

He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

[Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein.] 

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil], Aphorism 146 (1886)

Having stripped myself of all illusions, I have gone mad.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
My Sister and I, 5.12 [tr. Levi (1951)]
Written in an asylum.

The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Gay Science, Sec. 130 (1882)

What does not kill me makes me stronger.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Twilight of the Gods, “Maxims and Arrows” (8) (1889)
(tr. R. J. Hollingdale, 1968)