With a vast number of quotable statements, almost everything that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote was poignant with abundant meaning. His specific study of language and mastery of vocabulary allowed him unparalleled communication skills that he melded with deep comprehension of philosophical concepts where he flexed his intellect as it applied to observation and contemplation.
Friedrich Nietzsche quotes are proof of just how genius this man was when it came to stringing together words that have lasted for lifetimes beyond his own.
On October 15th, 1844, Friedrich Nietzsche was born as the son of a Lutheran Minister in Röcken, Lützen, Germany. His father died five years later, and their family moved to Naumburg where he was the only boy in a house with his grandmother, mother, two aunts, and younger sister.
From early in his childhood, Friedrich Nietzsche showed incredible talent and intellect in school.
While he was pursuing his Ph.D. in philosophy, Nietzsche befriended Richard Wagner. Associations with cultural icons of the time would become a pattern throughout Nietzsche’s life. He would continue to apply philosophy to culture as a guide for how culture leads society. This was counter to the conventional thought of the time where religion and not culture is the moral benchmark for society.
Due to health reasons that would be a constant nuisance for Nietzsche, he resigned his work at the University of Basel. After leaving the university, his work continued as the themes shifted to more directly questioning Christian and religious morality, master-slave morality and controversial works that contemplated the death of God.
From 1877 until his mental breakdown in 1889 and eventual death in 1900, he would continue to question conventional morality and religion remaining controversial. In 1889, he suffered a mental breakdown when he attempted to stop a horse from being flogged and would not return to the controversial but inquisitive writings of the intellectual giant. His sister Elisabeth studied his works and continued compiling his work and became his curator. After suffering two strokes, Nietzsche finally died in 1900 from a pneumonia.
Throughout his short life, Nietzsche was a pioneer with the courage to question what is accepted as normal.
His revolutionary perspectives combined with his innate intellect and understanding of philosophy and philology created works of wisdom with a modern perspective for their time. Although the works were received as controversial, they also questioned conventional wisdom and invoked thought that changed the concept of morality and the values of society.
Keep reading to learn our favorite Friedrich Nietzsche quotes…
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“That which does not kill us makes us stronger.”
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“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
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“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
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“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.”
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“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
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“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
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“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”
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“Faith: not wanting to know what the truth is.”
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“No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life,”
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“Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.”
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“I would believe only in a God that knows how to dance.”
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“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’ … Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.”
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“Here the ways of men divide. If you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.”
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“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
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“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
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“It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!”
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“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
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“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”
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“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
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“Sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth because they don’t want their illusions destroyed.”
