Beyond Good and Evil

"As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as a state of distress..."

Chapter 9·philosophy, Wisdom

"To be sure, he who is himself only a slender, tame house-animal, and knows only the wants of a house-animal... need neither be amazed nor even sad amid those ruins."

Chapter 3, Section 52·philosophy, Wisdom

"To both, of course, to the scholar and to the old maid, one concedes respectability, as if by way of indemnification--in these cases one emphasizes the respectability--and yet, in the compulsion of this concession, one has the same admixture of vexation."

Chapter 6, Section 206·philosophy, Wisdom

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong.

Chapter 2, Section 29·philosophy, Wisdom

"The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation."

Chapter 3, Section 46·philosophy, Ethics

"The declaration of independence of the scientific man, his emancipation from philosophy, is one of the subtler after-effects of democratic organization and disorganization."

Chapter 6, Section 204·philosophy, Wisdom

"The democratising of Europe is at the same time an involuntary arrangement for the rearing of TYRANTS--taking the word in all its meanings, even in its most spiritual sense."

Chapter 8, Section 242·philosophy, Wisdom

The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should not regard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the SIGNIFICANCE and highest justification thereof.

Chapter 9, Section 258·philosophy, Ethics

Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will always be--a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other.

Chapter 9, Section 257·philosophy, Wisdom

Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, the many, the majority.

Chapter 2, Section 26·philosophy, self-improvement

The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do so, however, if he knew that evil is evil.

Chapter 5, Section 190·philosophy, Wisdom

"The fact thereby becomes obvious that the greater part of what interests and charms higher natures... seems absolutely 'uninteresting' to the average man."

Chapter 7, Section 220·philosophy, Wisdom

"The German soul is above all manifold, varied in its source, aggregated and super-imposed, rather than actually built: this is owing to its origin."

Chapter 8, Section 244·philosophy, Wisdom

Granted that we want the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance?

Chapter 1, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

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

Chapter 4, Section 116·philosophy, Wisdom

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.

Chapter 4, Section 146·philosophy, Wisdom

"The historical sense... has come to us in the train of the enchanting and mad semi-barbarity into which Europe has been plunged by the democratic mingling of classes and races."

Chapter 7, Section 224·philosophy, Wisdom

"How is the negation of will POSSIBLE? how is the saint possible?"

Chapter 3, Section 47·philosophy, Wisdom

I do not believe that an 'impulse to knowledge' is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge as an instrument.

Chapter 1, Section 6·philosophy, Wisdom

"I hope that the men on this earth will do like the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans!"

Chapter 8, Section 243·philosophy, self-improvement

Jesus said to his Jews: "The law was for servants;--love God as I love him, as his Son! What have we Sons of God to do with morals!"

Chapter 4, Section 164·philosophy, Wisdom

"Knowledge for its own sake"--that is the last snare laid by morality: we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more.

Chapter 4, Section 64·philosophy, Wisdom

Life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.

Chapter 9, Section 259·philosophy, Wisdom

To live--is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?

Chapter 1, Section 9·philosophy, Wisdom

"The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary privation."

Chapter 3, Section 51·philosophy, Wisdom

The moral sentiment in Europe at present is perhaps as subtle, belated, diverse, sensitive, and refined, as the 'Science of Morals' belonging thereto is recent, initial, awkward, and coarse-fingered.

Chapter 5, Section 186·philosophy, Wisdom

The noble man honours in himself the powerful one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and hard.

Chapter 9, Section 260·philosophy, Wisdom

The noble type of man separates from himself the beings in whom the opposite of this exalted, proud disposition displays itself he despises them.

Chapter 9, Section 260·philosophy, Ethics

Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulse--the tyrant in us.

Chapter 4, Section 158·philosophy, Wisdom

It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men.

Chapter 4, Section 72·philosophy, Wisdom

"But now when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier--sleep..."

Chapter 9·philosophy, Ethics

"The objective man is in truth a mirror accustomed to prostration before everything that wants to be known, with such desires only as knowing or 'reflecting' implies."

Chapter 6, Section 207·philosophy, Wisdom

O sancta simplicitas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel!

Chapter 2, Section 24·philosophy, Wisdom

Our deepest insights must--and should--appear as follies, and under certain circumstances as crimes, when they come unauthorizedly to the ears of those who are not disposed and predestined for them.

Chapter 2, Section 30·philosophy, Wisdom

"It is part of my intention; a cumbersome drapery, something arbitrarily barbaric and ceremonious, a flirring of learned and venerable conceits and witticisms; something German in the best and worst sense of the word, something in the German style, manifold, formless, and inexhaustible; a certain German potency and super-plenitude of soul, which is not afraid to hide itself under the RAFFINEMENTS of decadence."

Chapter 8, Section 240·philosophy, Wisdom

"And perhaps also the arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIM AT...."

Chapter 9·philosophy, self-improvement

"The philosopher has long been mistaken and confused by the multitude, either with the scientific man and ideal scholar, or with the religiously elevated, desensualized, desecularized visionary and God-intoxicated man."

Chapter 6, Section 205·philosophy, Wisdom

"The philosophy of the dogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise for thousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in still earlier times..."

Chapter 9·philosophy, Wisdom

"The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so."

Chapter 7, Section 219·philosophy, Ethics

The question whether, in respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality... it is always the old moral problem that first appeared in the person of Socrates.

Chapter 5, Section 191·philosophy, Wisdom

TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner.

Chapter 1, Section 4·philosophy, Wisdom

In short, systems of morals are only a SIGN-LANGUAGE OF THE EMOTIONS.

Chapter 5, Section 187·philosophy, Wisdom

"A single individual! alas, only a single individual! and this great forest, this virgin forest!"

Chapter 3, Section 45·philosophy, Wisdom

"A statesman who rears up for them a new Tower of Babel, some monstrosity of empire and power, they call 'great'--what does it matter that we more prudent and conservative ones do not meanwhile give up the old belief that it is only the great thought that gives greatness to an action or affair?"

Chapter 8, Section 241·philosophy, Ethics

"Supposing that Truth is a woman--what then? Is there not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in so far as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understand women?"

Chapter 9·philosophy, Wisdom

Take care, ye philosophers and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering 'for the truth's sake'! even in your own defense!

Chapter 2, Section 25·philosophy, Wisdom

"Is there anything finer than to SEARCH for one's own virtues? Is it not almost to BELIEVE in one's own virtues?"

Chapter 7, Section 214·philosophy, Wisdom

"We modern men, owing to the complicated mechanism of our 'firmament,' are determined by DIFFERENT moralities; our actions shine alternately in different colours, and are seldom unequivocal."

Chapter 7, Section 215·philosophy, Wisdom

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

Chapter 4, Section 153·philosophy, Wisdom

What is essential and invaluable in every system of morals, is that it is a long constraint.

Chapter 5, Section 188·philosophy, Wisdom

"Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays... he will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of SELF-CONTEMPT."

Chapter 7, Section 222·philosophy, Wisdom