Quotes

Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

Christianity came into existence to lighten the heart, but now it needs to burden the heart to start with so it can lighten it afterwards. Consequently, it will perish.

To escape boredom, man works either beyond what his usual needs require, or else he invents play, that is, work that is designed to quiet no need other than that for working in general.

Every tradition grows ever more venerable - the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe.

To ordain the future in advance in this way, man must first have learned to distinguish necessary events from chance ones, to think causally, to see and anticipate distant eventualities as if they belonged to the present, to decide with certainty what is the goal and what the means to it, and in general be able to calculate and compute.

How much reverence has a noble man for his enemies!--and such reverence is a bridge to love.--For he desires his enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction; he can endure no other enemy than one in whom there is nothing to despise and very much to honor! In contrast to this, picture "the enemy" as the man of ressentiment conceives him--and here precisely is his deed, his creation: he has conceived "the evil enemy," "the Evil One," and this in fact is his basic concept, from which he then evolves, as an afterthought and pendant, a "good one"--himself!

To demand of strength that it should not express itself as strength, that it should not be a desire to overcome, a desire to throw down, a desire to become master, a thirst for enemies and resistances and triumphs, is just as absurd as to demand of weakness that it should express itself as strength.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.

Resentment, born of weakness, harms no one more than the weak person himself.

Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.

The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.

Sensuality often hastens the growth of love so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.

Woman learns to hate to the extent to which her charms decrease.

Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.

He who wills believes with a fair amount of certainty that will and action are somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, to the will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation of power which accompanies all success.

Where neither love nor hatred is in the game, a woman's game is mediocre.

I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free ourselves from the seduction of words!

"I did that," says my memory. "I could not have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually the memory yields.

Madness is something rare in individuals -- but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.