Thus Spake Zarathustra

The ability to say of all that is past: 'Thus would I have it.'

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"Ah, that (man’s) baddest is so very small! Ah, that his best is so very small."

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Wisdom

"Ah that ye understood my word: ‘Do ever what ye will—but first be such as CAN WILL.’"

Part 2, Section 2·philosophy, Wisdom

"All good things laugh," he says, and his final command to the higher men is, "LEARN, I pray you—to laugh."

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

All morality is a mere means to power.

Chapter 15, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"All that increases power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad. The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our charity. And one shall also help them thereto."

Chapter XXII, Section 20·philosophy, self-improvement

All those philosophers hitherto, who have run in the harness of established values and have not risked their reputation with the people in pursuit of truth.

Chapter XXX, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

"Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. It is a discourse against all those who confound virtue with tameness and smug ease, and who regard as virtuous only that which promotes security and tends to deepen sleep."

Chapter 2·philosophy, Wisdom

"The aristocracy of character has been undermined most craftily by the lie of the equality of souls;"

Chapter 10, Section LIX·philosophy, Wisdom

To be able to smile while speaking of lofty things and NOT TO BE OPPRESSED by them, is the secret of real greatness.

Chapter XXXV, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"Become what thou art."

Part 4, Section 61·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

Before they are uttered they are full of the modesty of a virgin.

Chapter 10, Section LIV·philosophy, Wisdom

"Bite! Bite! Its head off! Bite!"

Chapter 10, Section LVI·philosophy, Ethics

"It is Christianity, let us not doubt it, it is CHRISTIAN valuations, which translate every revolution merely into blood and crime!"

Chapter 10, Section LIX·philosophy, leadership

"Cowardice and Mediocrity, are the names with which he labels modern notions of virtue and moderation."

Chapter 10, Section LIX·philosophy, self-improvement

A creator of new values meets with his surest and strongest obstacles in the very spirit of the language which is at his disposal.

Chapter XXIII, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

The danger of allowing their thoughts to be moulded by the words at their disposal.

Chapter XXIII, Section 2·philosophy, self-improvement

"By depriving a man of his wickedness... one may unwittingly be doing violence to the greatest in him."

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, self-improvement

"By destroying these particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinise woman, and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people."

Chapter XVIII·philosophy, Wisdom

"The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence appears for the last time here, in an art-form. Nietzsche lays stress upon the fact that all happiness, all delight, longs for repetitions."

Part 1, Section 79·philosophy, self-improvement

"Do I counsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel to innocence in your instincts."

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"Do I then strive after HAPPINESS? I strive after my work!"

Part 1, Section 80·philosophy, self-improvement

"In the end, it is not the great deeds that matter, but the small acts of kindness that echo through eternity."

Chapter XXXIII, Section 28·philosophy, self-improvement

"Freedom from fever is still far from being knowledge."

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"‘Freedom’ ye all roar most eagerly, but I have unlearned the belief in ‘Great Events’ when there is much roaring and smoke about them."

Chapter 10, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra? Clearly, however, shall thine eye answer me: free FOR WHAT?"

Part 2, Section 2·philosophy, Ethics

"Friendship is the highest form of love, for it is born from the spirit and nurtured by the heart."

Chapter XXXIII, Section 29·Wisdom, philosophy

The Giant Chance has hitherto played with the puppet 'man,'—this is the fact he cannot contemplate with equanimity.

Chapter 10, Section LVIII·philosophy, self-improvement

“The good and just, throughout the book, is the expression used in referring to the self-righteous of modern times.”

Part 1, Prologue·philosophy, Ethics

The good—they have always been the beginning of the end.—

Part 1, Section 26·philosophy, Wisdom, Ethics

"The grave is a great teacher; it teaches us to be wise and to be silent."

Chapter XXXIII, Section 27·philosophy, Wisdom

"The greatest events—they are not our loudest but our stillest hours."

Chapter 9, Section 4·philosophy, Wisdom

"He accuses such idealists of hypocrisy and guile; he says they lack innocence in their desires and therefore slander all desiring."

Chapter XXXVII, Section 3·philosophy, Wisdom

"He came to save higher men;—to give them that freedom by which, alone, they can develop and reach their zenith."

Part 1·philosophy, self-improvement

"He knew too well what these things meant to the millions who profess them, to approach the task of uprooting them with levity or even with haste."

Chapter XVIII, Section 28·philosophy, Wisdom

He overcame Pessimism by discovering an object in existence; he saw the possibility of raising society to a higher level and preached the profoundest Optimism in consequence.

Chapter 10, Section LI·philosophy, Wisdom

He points to creating as the surest salvation from the suffering which is a concomitant of all higher life.

Chapter XXIV, Section 2·philosophy, self-improvement

"Heroism foiled, thwarted, and wrecked, hoping and fighting until the last, is at length overtaken by despair, and renounces all struggle for sleep."

Chapter XXII, Section 18·philosophy, Wisdom

"He saw what modern anarchists and revolutionists do NOT see—namely, that man is in danger of actual destruction when his customs and values are broken."

Chapter XVIII, Section 28·philosophy, Wisdom

“He says he would he were as wise as his serpent.”

Part 1, Prologue·philosophy, self-improvement

He is shamefast and bashful with those who surround him and wishes not to be discovered by them.

Chapter 10, Section LIII·philosophy, Wisdom

He was among the first thinkers of Europe to overcome the pessimism which godlessness generally brings in its wake.

Chapter XXIV, Section 3·philosophy, Wisdom

"He was well aware of the dangers threatening greatness in our age."

Part 1·philosophy, Wisdom

He who can be proud of his enemies, who can be grateful to them for the obstacles they have put in his way; he who can regard his worst calamity as but the extra strain on the bow of his life, which is to send the arrow of his longing even further than he could have hoped;—this man knows no revenge, neither does he know despair, he truly has found redemption and can turn on the worst in his life and even in himself, and call it his best.

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

But he who discovered the country of 'man,' discovered also the country of 'man’s future.'

Part 1, Section 28·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

“He who had to create, had always his presaging dreams and astral premonitions—and believed in believing!”

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Wisdom

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

Chapter 9, Section 2·philosophy, self-improvement

...he who hath to be a creator in good and evil—verily he hath first to be a destroyer, and break values in pieces.

Chapter XXXIV, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

He whose hand trembles when it lays hold of a beautiful thing, has the quality of reverence, without the artist’s unembarrassed friendship with the beautiful.

Chapter XXXV, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

And he who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all glasses: and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.

Chapter 10, Section LIII·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"He would probably have argued that we only see the successful cases."

Part 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"The higher the type of man, the more he is alone."

Chapter XXIX, Section 4·philosophy, Wisdom

"The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly."

Chapter XXXVIII, Section 3·Wisdom, philosophy

"I am a law only for mine own, I am not a law for all. This—is now MY way,—where is yours?"

Part 2, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"I am a railing alongside the torrent; whoever is able to grasp me, may grasp me! Your crutch, however, I am not."

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

“I could only love my children’s land, the undiscovered land in a remote sea; because I would fain retrieve the errors of my fathers in my children.”

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Ethics

"I DO NOT TREAT MY WARRIORS INDULGENTLY," he says: "how then could ye be fit for MY warfare?"

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"I have come that I may seduce thee to thy last sin!"

Part 4, Section 62·philosophy, Wisdom, Ethics

"I love the great despisers because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore."

Part 4, Section 68·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"I love him who liveth in order to know, and seeketh to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live."

Part 4, Section 64·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

“An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest ‘spirit.’”

Chapter 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

Involuntary bliss is the highest bliss; it is the bliss of the child, the bliss of the artist, the bliss of the sage.

Chapter 10, Section LVII·philosophy, Wisdom

"To laugh at oneself is to be free from the chains of self-importance."

Chapter XXXIX·philosophy, self-improvement

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

Chapter XXII, Section 10·philosophy, Ethics

"A little older, a little colder," says Nietzsche. They soon clamber back to the conventions of the age they intended reforming.

Part 3, Section 3·philosophy, self-improvement

"A little valiant nonsense, some divine service and ass-festival, some old joyful Zarathustra fool, some blusterer to blow their souls bright."

Part 1, Section 78·philosophy, Wisdom

"To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering."

Chapter XXXIII, Section 30·philosophy, Ethics

Man shall now exploit chance, he says again and again, and make it fall on its knees before him!

Chapter 10, Section LVIII·philosophy, Wisdom

The man with overflowing strength, both of mind and body, who must discharge this strength or perish, is the Nietzschean ideal.

Chapter XXII, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

Modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals.

Chapter 15, Section 2·philosophy, self-improvement

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

Part 3, Section 71·philosophy, Wisdom

"Much is reckoned higher than life itself by the living one."

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Wisdom

For, my brethren, the best shall rule, the best also WILLETH to rule! And where the teaching is different, there—the best is LACKING.

Part 1, Section 22·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"Nay! Nay! Three times nay! Always more, always better ones of your type shall succumb—for ye shall always have it worse and harder."

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

Neither a good nor a bad taste, but MY taste, of which I have no longer either shame or secrecy.

Part 1, Section 9·philosophy, Wisdom

"Never on earth laughed a man as he laughed!"

Chapter 10, Section LVI·philosophy, self-improvement

Nietzsche had a particular aversion to the word 'suicide'—self-murder. He disliked the evil it suggested.

Chapter XXI·philosophy, Ethics

"Nietzsche’s philosophy might be called an attempt at giving back to healthy and normal men innocence and a clean conscience in their desires."

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

Nietzsche was not an iconoclast from choice. Those who hastily class him with the anarchists fail to understand the high esteem in which he always held both law and discipline.

Chapter XXXIV, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

"Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new values, doth the world revolve; INAUDIBLY it revolveth."

Chapter 10, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

Often the oldest sage will blush like a girl when this virginity is violated by an indiscretion.

Chapter 10, Section LIV·philosophy, Wisdom

"Oh, my brethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX? Have not all railings and foot-bridges fallen into the water? Who would still HOLD ON to ‘good’ and ‘evil’?"

Chapter XXII, Section 8·philosophy, Wisdom

O my brethren! With whom lieth the greatest danger to the whole human future? Is it not with the good and just?—As those who say and feel in their hearts: 'We already know what is good and just, we possess it also; woe to those who still seek thereafter!'

Part 1, Section 26·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.”

Part 3, Section 3·philosophy, Wisdom

“Only by bearing the burdens of the existing law and submitting to it patiently, as the camel submits to being laden, does the free spirit acquire that ascendancy over tradition.”

Chapter 1, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

"The only possible way in which the great man can achieve greatness is by means of exceptional freedom—the freedom which assists him in experiencing HIMSELF."

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Ethics, self-improvement

“It is only through existing law and order that one attains to that height from which new law and new order may be promulgated.”

Chapter 1, Section 1·philosophy, Ethics

"Only thus, and he is undoubtedly right, can their combined instincts lead to the excellence of humanity."

Chapter XVIII·philosophy, self-improvement

“In order to create one must be as a little child.”

Chapter 1, Section 1·Wisdom, philosophy

Our deepest feelings crave silence.

Chapter 10, Section LIV·philosophy, Wisdom

"Our politics are MORBID from this want of courage!"

Chapter 10, Section LIX·philosophy, Ethics

O Will, thou change of every need, MY needfulness! Spare me for one great victory!

Part 1, Section 30·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"A philanthropy that sacrifices the minority of the present-day for the majority constituting posterity, completely evades his mental grasp."

Part 3, Section 4·philosophy, Wisdom

The philosopher, however, as Nietzsche understood him, is a man who creates new values, and thus leads mankind in a new direction.

Chapter XXX, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"Pity was his greatest danger."

Part 3, Section 4·philosophy, Wisdom

"The poet is a creator of worlds, and in his worlds, he is the master of all things."

Chapter XXXIX·literature, Wisdom

"The preachers of death are the most dangerous of all men; they are the ones who would have us believe that life is a burden, a curse, and that we should seek to escape it."

Chapter 9, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"At present nobody has any longer the courage for separate rights, for rights of domination, for a feeling of reverence for himself and his equals,—FOR PATHOS OF DISTANCE...."

Chapter 10, Section LIX·philosophy, Wisdom

The profound man, who is by nature differentiated from his fellows, feels this difference too keenly to call attention to it by any outward show.

Chapter 10, Section LIII·philosophy, Wisdom

Punishment meaning to him merely a euphemism for the word revenge, invented in order to still our consciences.

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Ethics, Wisdom

"To rise above it—to soar—is the most difficult of all things to-day."

Chapter 10, Section LVI·philosophy, self-improvement

“A robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen.”

Part 1, Prologue·philosophy, Wisdom

The root of modern Nihilism and indifference lies in the absence of goals.

Chapter 15, Section 3·philosophy, Wisdom

"To save the clean healthy man from the values of those around him, who look at everything through the mud that is in their own bodies."

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Ethics, Wisdom

"The scientific spirit of the investigator is both helped and supplemented by the latter’s emotions and personality."

Chapter XXXVII, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"The sexes are at bottom ANTAGONISTIC—that is to say, as different as blue is from yellow."

Chapter XVIII·philosophy, Wisdom

"To speak of the activity of life as a 'struggle for existence,' is to state the case inadequately."

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Ethics

"The spirit of gravity... is nothing more than the heavy millstone 'guilty conscience,' together with the concept of sin which at present hangs round the neck of men."

Chapter 10, Section LVI·philosophy, Wisdom

"Stop this at once," Zarathustra cries, "long have thy speech and thy species disgusted me.... Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; BUT NOT OUT OF THE SWAMP!"

Part 3, Section 2·philosophy, Wisdom

To such a man, giving from his overflow becomes a necessity; bestowing develops into a means of existence.

Chapter XXII, Section 2·Wisdom, self-improvement

"The tarantulas are the Socialists and Democrats."

Chapter XXIX, Section 2·philosophy, Ethics

"Thank God that I am not like thee!"

Part 4, Section 67·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"That great power and tenderness are kin, was already his belief in 1875—eight years before he wrote this speech, and when the birds and the lion come to him, it is because he is the embodiment of the two qualities."

Part 1, Section 80·philosophy, Wisdom

“Their sterility is the result of their not believing in anything.”

Chapter XXXVI·philosophy, Wisdom

"There are few pains so grievous as to have seen, divined, or experienced how an exceptional man has missed his way and deteriorated..."

Part 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"There are those who preach my doctrine of life, and are at the same time preachers of equality and tarantulas."

Chapter XXIX, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

There is a certain self-respect in the serious man which makes him hold his profoundest feelings sacred.

Chapter 10, Section LIV·philosophy, self-improvement

"There is no sorer misfortune in all human destiny than when the mighty of the earth are not also the first men."

Part 4, Section 63·philosophy, Wisdom, leadership

“There is no truth, only interpretation.”

Part 3, Section 5·philosophy, Ethics

This teaching in regard to self-control is evidence enough of his reverence for law.

Chapter XXXIV, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"True, he has helped them, he has given them back what they most need, i.e., belief in believing—the confidence in having confidence in something, but how do they use it?"

Part 1, Section 77·philosophy, Wisdom

"A true poet is not only a master of words but also a master of the human soul."

Chapter XXXIX·Wisdom, literature

"And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to LEARN to love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last, and patientest."

Part 2, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

Voluntary Death, i.e., the death that comes from no other hand than one’s own, he was desirous of elevating it to the position it held in classical antiquity.

Chapter XXI·philosophy, Wisdom

“It is a warning to those who would think too lightly of the instincts and unduly exalt the intellect and its derivatives: Reason and Understanding.”

Chapter 4, Section 1·philosophy, self-improvement

"What does not kill me makes me stronger."

Part 3, Section 71·philosophy, self-improvement

"What is good? To be brave is good! It is the good war which halloweth every cause!"

Chapter 10, Section LII·philosophy, Ethics

"What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the word of him who said: ‘Woe unto them that laugh now!’"

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"What he wished to determine was: Who is to be master of the world?"

Part 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"What Nietzsche strives to combat and to overthrow is the modern democratic tendency which is slowly labouring to level all things—even the sexes."

Chapter XVIII·philosophy, Ethics

For what they dare to touch and break with the impudence and irreverence of the unappreciative, he seems likewise to touch and break,—but with other fingers—with the fingers of the loving and unembarrassed artist.

Chapter XXXV, Section 1·philosophy, Ethics

What would there be to create, if there were—Gods?

Chapter XXIV, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

"Who still wanteth to rule? Who still wanteth to obey? Both are too burdensome."

Chapter XVIII, Section 24·philosophy, Wisdom

Why so soft, so submissive and yielding? Why is there so much negation and abnegation in your hearts? Why is there so little fate in your looks?

Part 1, Section 29·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"With respect to what is past, I have, like all discerning ones, great toleration, that is to say, GENEROUS self-control.... But my feeling changes suddenly, and breaks out as soon as I enter the modern period, OUR period. Our age KNOWS..."

Part 3, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom

Words, like all other manifestations of an evolving race, are stamped with the values that have long been paramount in that race.

Chapter XXIII, Section 3·philosophy, Wisdom

"Ye higher men, think ye that I am here to put right what ye have put wrong? Or that I wished henceforth to make snugger couches for you sufferers?"

Part 4, Section 1·philosophy, Wisdom, self-improvement

"The young shepherd... represents the man of to-day; the snake that chokes him represents the stultifying and paralysing social values that threaten to shatter humanity."

Chapter 10, Section LVI·philosophy, Wisdom

"Zarathustra abjures all those who would fain turn an IMPERSONAL eye upon nature and contemplate her phenomena with that pure objectivity."

Chapter XXXVII, Section 2·philosophy, Ethics

Zarathustra’s healthy exhortation to his disciples to become independent thinkers and to find themselves before they learn any more from him.

Chapter XXII, Section 3·philosophy, leadership