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| Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"No," answered Zarathustra, "I give no alms. For that I am not poor enough." A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.A letter is an unannounced visit, the postman the agent of rude surprises. One ought to reserve an hour a week for receiving letters and afterwards take a bath. A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love. A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation. A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands. Against boredom even the gods contend in vain. All great love is even above all its pity: for it still wants to create the beloved. All names of good and evil are parables; they do not define, they merely hint. a fool is he who wants knowledge of them! All of life is a dispute over taste and tasting. All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values. All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie? Altered opinions do not alter a man's character (or do so very little); but they do illuminate individual aspects of the constellation of his personality which with a different constellation of opinions had hitherto remained dark and unrecognizable. And do you know what "the world" is to me? a monster of energy, without beginning, without end, that does not expend itself but only transforms itself, as a becoming that knows no satiety, no weariness. And if a friend does you evil, then say: "I forgive you what you did to me; but that you have done it to yourself – how could I forgive that?" Thus speaks all great love: it overcomes even forgiveness and pity. And if a man goes through fire for his doctrine – what does that prove? Verily, it is more if your own doctrine comes out of your own fire. 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. And when you are cursed, I do not like it that you want to bless. Rather curse a little also! Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. As long as there have been men, man has felt too little joy: that alone, my brothers, is our original sin. At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid. Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life. Belief in truth begins with doubting all that has hitherto been believed true. Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously! But by my love and hope I beseech you: do not throw away the hero in your soul! Hold holy your highest hope! But how could I think of being just through and through? How can I give each his own? Let this be sufficient for me: I give each my own. But if you have an enemy, do not requite him evil with good, for that would put him to shame. Rather prove that he did you some good. But let this be your honor – always to love more than you are loved, and never to be second. But the worst enemy you can encounter will always be you, yourself; you lie in wait for yourself in caves and woods. Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw off? The case of the philosopher. Canst thou set up thy will as a law over thee? Canst thou be judge for thyself, and avenger of thy law? Complaining is never any good: it stems from weakness. Convictions are a more dangerous enemy of truth than lies. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent-that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior. Did you ever say yes to a pleasure? Oh my friends, then you have also said yes to all pain. all things are linked, entwined, in love with one another. Die at the right time – thus teaches Zarathustra. Of course, how could those who never live at the right time die at the right time? Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology. Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion? Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul. Ever hearkeneth the Self, and seeketh; it compareth, mastereth, conquereth, and destroyeth. Every extension of knowledge arises from making the conscious the unconscious. Every philosophy is the philosophy of some stage of life. Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present. Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience. Faith: not wanting to know what is true. First, people were creators; and only in later times, individuals. Veryily, the individual himself is still the most recent creation. For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything. For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child. God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight. Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm. Have I been understood? – Dionysus versus the Crucified. He who cannot obey himself is commanded. He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how. He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life. Higher yet than the love of human beings I esteem the love of things and ghosts. Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man. How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life. Human existence is uncanny and still without meaning: a jester can become man's fatality. I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage. I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his divine service. I do not like your cold justice; out of the eye of your judges there always glances the executioner and his cold steel. I fear we are not getting rid of God because we still believe in grammar. I know of no better life purpose than to perish in attempting the great and the impossible. I love him who lives to know, and who wants to know. I want to have goblins around me, for I am courageous. I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer! I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance. I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer. If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and I do pity, it is preferably from a distance. If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. In a friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point. In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play. In heaven all the interesting people are missing. In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad. In music the passions enjoy themselves. In order to acquire intellect one must need it. One loses it when it is no longer necessary. In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence ... and loathing seizes him. Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves? Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man's? It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night. It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them! It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book. It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right – especially when one is right. It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men. It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but because we are wont to love. It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms. Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine. Know that the noble man stands in everybody's way ... The noble man wants to create something new and a new virtue. The good want the old, and that the old be preserved. 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. Life without music would be a mistake. Man cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him. Man is more ape than many of the apes. Man is something that shall be overcome. 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. Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good. Many a man fails to become a thinker only because his memory is too good. Morality is the greatest of all tools for leading mankind by the nose. Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. My humanity is a constant self-overcoming. No victor believes in chance. Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity! Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride. Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood. Oh I found it, my brothers! Here on the loftiest height the fount of delight wells up for me! and here is a life of which the rabble does not drink! Oh, how tired I am of insufficiency! 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. Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob. One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth. One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes. One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star. One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed. One should never know too precisely whom one has married. One will not go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and petty ones to fear. Only sick music makes money today. Only the most acute and active animals are capable of boredom. a theme for a great poet would be God's boredom on the seventh day of creation. Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. 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. Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter. 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. Plato is boring. Plato was a bore.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.Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings. Some men are born posthumously. Spirit is the life that itself cuts into life; with its own agony it increases its own knowledge. Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any realized joy could be.Success has always been a great liar. Surpass thyself even in thy neighbor. Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.Terrible it is to be alone with the judge and avenger of one's own law. Thus is a star thrown out into the void and into the icy breath of solitude. The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. The bite of consciousness teaches men to bite. The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad. The consequences of our actions take hold of us quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have "improved". The danger of those who always give is that they lose their sense of shame; and the heart and hand of those who always mete out become callous from always meting out. The delight of the herd is more ancient than the delight in the ego; and as long as the good conscience is identified with the herd, only the bad conscience say: I. The desire to create continually is vulgar and betrays jealousy, envy, ambition. If one is something one really does not need to make anything --and one nonetheless does very much. There exists above the productive man a yet higher species. The doer alone learneth. The great man fights the elements in his time that hinder his own greatness, in other words his own freedom and sincerity. The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it. The kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart - not something that comes upon the earth or after death.The last Christian died on the cross. The lie is a condition of life. The lonely one offers his hand too quickly to whomever he encounters. The man of knowledge must not only love his enemies, he must also be able to hate his friends. The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it. The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments. The overman ... Who has organized the chaos of his passions, given style to his character, and become creative. aware of life's terrors, he affirms life without resentment. The strongest have their moments of fatigue. 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 . The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others. The warrior does not like all-too-sweet fruit; therefore he likes woman; even the sweetest woman is bitter. Woman understands children better than man does, but man is more childlike than woman. The word Christianity is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.The world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! and you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else! The you is older than the I; the you has been pronounced holy, but not yet the I: so man crowds toward his neighbor. There are no facts, only interpretations. There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do. They have called "God" what was contrary to them and gave them pain; and verily, thre was much of the heroic in their adoration. and they did not know how to love their god except by crucifying man. They like to crucify those who invent their own virtue for themselves – they hate the lonely one. This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. This is your thirst: to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves; and that is why you thirst to pile up all the riches in your soul. Thou lovest thyself, and on that account despisest thou thyself, as only the loving ones despise. To create, desireth the loving one, because he despiseth! Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler. Thus spoke the devil to me once more: "God too has his hell: that is his love of man." and most recently I heard him say this: "God is dead; God died of his pity for man." To many a one may you not give your hand, but only your paw; and I wish your paw also to have claws. To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common. True, we love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love. But there is always some reason in madness. Verily, even evil deeds are better than petty thoughts ... But a petty thought is like a fungus: it creeps and stoops and does not want to be anywhere – until the whole body is rotten and withered with little fungi. War: It makes the victor stupid, the vanquished malignant. Was that life? Well then! Once more! We have become cold, hard, and tough in the realization that the way of this world is anything but divine; even by human standards it is not rational, merciful, or just. What does not destroy me, makes me stronger. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. What matters is not that you have lied to me. What matters is that now I can no longer believe anything you say. What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind. When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one. When I am at the top, I always find myself alone. When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets. When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets. When one has not had a good father, one must create one. Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'. Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. and when you look long into an abyss, remember, the abyss also looks into you. Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs. Woman was God's second mistake. Women can form a friendship with a man very well; but to preserve it - to that end a slight physical antipathy must probably help.Women was God's second mistake. Would that you would invent for me the justice that acquits al, except him that judges! You great star, what would your happiness be had you not those for whom you shine? You had not yet sought yourselves: and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. You have often made wisdom into a poorhouse and a hospital for bad poets. You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star. You shall build over and beyond yourself, but first you must be built yourself, perpendicular in body and soul. You shall not only reproduce yourself, but produce something higher. |
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