Nietzsche Quotes

“A system must necessarily be based on premises that by its very nature it cannot question.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“No one system reveals the entire truth; at best, each organizes one point of view or perspective. We must consider many perspectives, and a philosopher should not imprison his thought in one system.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“Instead of proving himself in his first book as an unswerving follower of Schopenhauer – as has so often been taken for granted – Nietzsche discovers in Greek art a bulwark against Schopenhauer’s pessimism. One can oppose the shallow optimism of so many Western thinkers and yet refuse to negate life. Schopenhauer’s negativistic pessimism is rejected along with the superficial optimism of the popular Hegelians and Darwinists: one can face the terrors of history and nature with unbroken courage and say Yes to life.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The powerful, as Nietzsche points out expressly, have no need to prove their might either to themselves or to others by oppressing or hurting others; if they do hurt others, they do so incidentally in the process of using their power creatively; they hurt others 'without thinking of it'.

A good illustration of the manner in which the person who has power may hurt another person incidentally without without the express wish of doing so would be Goethe, whose loves Nietzsche probably had to learn by heart, like most other students Goethe — as German teachers like to point out — broke Friederike's heart by lavishing his love upon her and then not marrying her. Goethe, however, had no thought of seeing the poor girl suffer. Only the weak need to convince themselves and others of their might by inflicting hurt; the truly powerful are not concerned with others but act out of a fullness and overflow.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“There is apparently, here and there on earth, a kind of continuation of love where this greedy desire of two persons for each other has given way to a new craving and greed, a common higher thirst for an ideal that stands above [über] them: but who knows this love? who has experienced it? Its true name is friendship [FW 14].”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“In our time equality is confused with conformity – as Nietzsche sees it– and it is taken to involve the renunciation of personal initiative and the demand for a general leveling. Men are losing the ambition to be equally excellent, which involves as the surest means the desire to excel one another in continued competition, and they are becoming resigned to being equally mediocre.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“Those who have never faced disease and suffering have no need of producing beauty”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“In truth, there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.—A 39.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“Nietzsche says: “Nicht nur fort sollst du dich pflanzen sondern hinauf”—you should propagate yourself not only onward but upward: procreation need not be a senseless continuation of an essentially meaningless story and an addition of more and more zeros—it can really be a creation.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The Germans think that strength must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty; then they submit with fervor and admiration: they are suddenly rid of their pitiful weakness and their sensitivity for every naught, and they devoutly enjoy terror. That there is strength in mildness and stillness, they do not believe easily. They miss strength in Goethe …!—XI, 112.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The projection of one's feeling toward oneself upon a cosmic scale may seem to hinge on a metaphysical premise, but it can be defended empirically. That I am here, now, doing this - that depends on an awe-inspiring series of antecedent events, on millions of seemingly accidental moves and decisions, both by myself and many others whose moves and decisions in turn depended on yet other people. And our very existence, our being as we are, required that our parents had to choose each other, not anyone else, and beget us at the precise moment when we were actually begotten; and the same consideration applies to their parents, and to all our ancestors, going back indefinitely. Thus any affirmation of the present moment points far beyond the present - and it is a significant psychological corollary, on which Nietzsche frequently insists, that those who are dissatisfied with themselves usually project their dissatisfaction upon the world.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“One can oppose the shallow optimism of so many Western thinkers and yet refuse to negate life.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“we others who thirst for reason want to look our experiences as straight in the eye as if they represented a scientific experiment”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“when Nietzsche’s fame had begun to spread rapidly, she climbed on the bandwagon. She acquired the sole rights to all his writings, including even the letters that he had sent to others. She sued those who published material to which she could claim a right.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The different philosophic systems are to be considered as educational methods of the spirit: they have always developed one particular force of the spirit best by their one-sided demand to see things just so and not otherwise [XVI, 76].”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“I am impassioned for independence; I sacrifice all for it … and am tortured more by all the smallest strings than others are by chains.—XXI, 88.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The love of those who have not learned to stand solitude, or who “invite a witness when [they] wish to speak well of” themselves is not a virtue but simply a weakness; nor do they profit their neighbors.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The priest knows only one great danger: that is science”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“A very popular error: having the courage of one’s convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one’s convictions!!!”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“For Nietzsche, the overman does not have instrumental value for the maintenance of society: he is valuable in himself because he embodies the state of being that has the only ultimate value there is; and society is censured insofar as it insists on conformity and impedes his development (cf. G. IX 44).”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The Übermensch at any rate cannot be dissociated from the conception of Überwindung, of overcoming. “Man is something that should be overcome”—and the man who has overcome himself has become an overman.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“Spirit is not opposed to life altogether, but directed only against one level of it. Its mission is not to destroy but to fulfill, to sublimate or—to use the expressions of the Meditations—to transfigure and perfect man’s nature.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“Time is the “moving image of eternity.”12”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The powerful, as Nietzsche points out expressly, have no need to prove their might either to themselves or to others by oppressing or hurting others; if they do hurt others, they do so incidentally in the process of using their power creatively; they hurt others 'without thinking of it'. Only the weak man 'wishes to hurt and to see signs of suffering'.

A good illustration of the manner in which the person who has power may hurt another person incidentally without the express wish of doing so would be Goethe, whose loves Nietzsche probably had to learn by heart, like most other students Goethe — as German teachers like to point out — broke Friederike's heart by lavishing his love upon her and then not marrying her. Goethe, however, had no thought of seeing the poor girl suffer. Only the weak need to convince themselves and others of their might by inflicting hurt; the truly powerful are not concerned with others but act out of a fullness and overflow.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“The powerful, as Nietzsche points out expressly, have no need to prove their might either to themselves or to others by oppressing or hurting others; if they do hurt others, they do so incidentally in the process of using their power creatively; they hurt others 'without thinking of it'. Only the weak man 'wishes to hurt and to see signs of suffering'.

A good illustration of the manner in which the person who has power may hurt another person incidentally without without the express wish of doing so would be Goethe, whose loves Nietzsche probably had to learn by heart, like most other students Goethe — as German teachers like to point out — broke Friederike's heart by lavishing his love upon her and then not marrying her. Goethe, however, had no thought of seeing the poor girl suffer. Only the weak need to convince themselves and others of their might by inflicting hurt; the truly powerful are not concerned with others but act out of a fullness and overflow.”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“My lot is that I must be the first decent human being,”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist

“But a solitary suffers terribly from any suspicion concerning the few people he loves—especially”
― Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist