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—that the terrible serious...

The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not l...

The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not l...

“How could anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright v...

Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the instinctive function...

The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life-preserving...

That which causes philosophers to be regarded half-distrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated discovery how innocent they are⁠—how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way...

It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of⁠—namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and ...

How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense,...

There is a point in every philosophy at which the “conviction” of the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery: Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus....

You desire to live “according to Nature”? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or con...

The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of “the real and the apparent world” is dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attenti...

It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value whic...

As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best-refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious sig...

Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength⁠—li...

It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural philosophy is only a world-exposition and world-arrangement (according to us, if I may say so!) and not a world-explanation; but in so far ...

To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes! ...

There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are “immediate certainties”; for instance, “I think,” or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, “I will”; as though cognition here ...

With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which is unwillingly recognized by these credulous minds⁠—namely, that a thought comes when “it” w...

It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the “free will” ...

Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were the best-known thing in the world; indeed, Schopenhauer has given us to understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolut...

That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or autonomously evolving, but grow up in connection and relationship with each other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem t...

The causa sui is the best self-contradiction that has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation and unnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundl...

Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from the mischief of putting his finger on bad modes of interpretation, but “Nature’s conformity to law,” of which you physicists talk so pr...

All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been wr...

O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything aro...

O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strange simplification and falsification man lives! One can never cease wondering when once one has got eyes for beholding this marvel! How we have made everything aro...

After such a cheerful commencement, a serious word would fain be heard; it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering...

Every select man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is free from the crowd, the many, the majority⁠—where he may forget “men who are the rule,” as their exception;⁠—exclusive ...

It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati1 among those only who think and live otherwise⁠—namely, kurmagati,2 or at best “froglike,” mandeikagati3 (I do eve...

What is most difficult to render from one language into another is the tempo of its style, which has its basis in the character of the race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average tempo of t...

It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being obliged to do so, proves that he is probably...

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. T...

In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of nuance, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and...

Throughout the longest period of human history⁠—one calls it the prehistoric period⁠—the value or non-value of an action was inferred from its consequences; the action in itself was not taken into con...

It cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for one’s neighbour, and all self-renunciation-morality, must be mercilessly called to account, and brought to judgment; just as the aesth...

At whatever standpoint of philosophy one may place oneself nowadays, seen from every position, the erroneousness of the world in which we think we live is the surest and most certain thing our eyes ca...

O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something ticklish in “the truth,” and in the search for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely⁠—“il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien”⁠—I ...

Supposing that nothing else is “given” as real but our world of desires and passions, that we cannot sink or rise to any other “reality” but just that of our impulses⁠—for thinking is only a relation ...

“What? Does not that mean in popular language: God is disproved, but not the devil?”⁠—On the contrary! On the contrary, my friends! And who the devil also compels you to speak popularly!...

As happened finally in all the enlightenment of modern times with the French Revolution (that terrible farce, quite superfluous when judged close at hand, into which, however, the noble and visionary ...

Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because it makes people happy or virtuous⁠—excepting, perhaps, the amiable “Idealists,” who are enthusiastic about the good, true, and beautif...

Everything that is profound loves the mask: the profoundest things have a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the contrary only be the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? ...

One must subject oneself to one’s own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one’s tests, although they constitute perhaps the most da...

A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves to be understood⁠—for it is their n...

Will they be new friends of “truth,” these coming philosophers? Very probably, for all philosophers hitherto have loved their truths. But assuredly they will not be dogmatists. It must be contrary to ...

Need I say expressly after all this that they will be free, very free spirits, these philosophers of the future⁠—as certainly also they will not be merely free spirits, but something more, higher, gre...

The human soul and its limits, the range of man’s inner experiences hitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these experiences, the entire history of the soul up to the present time, a...

The human soul and its limits, the range of man’s inner experiences hitherto attained, the heights, depths, and distances of these experiences, the entire history of the soul up to the present time, a...

Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and not infrequently achieved in the midst of a skeptical and southernly free-spirited world, which had centuries of struggle between philosophical schools b...

Wherever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far, we find it connected with three dangerous prescriptions as to regimen: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence⁠—but without its being...

It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their Catholicism than we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and that consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something ...

That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient Greeks is the irrestrainable stream of gratitude which it pours forth⁠—it is a very superior kind of man who takes such an attitude to...

The passion for God: there are churlish, honest-hearted, and importunate kinds of it, like that of Luther⁠—the whole of Protestantism lacks the southern delicatezza. There is an Oriental exaltation of...

The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary privation⁠—why did they thus bow? They divined in him⁠—and as it were be...

In the Jewish Old Testament, the book of divine justice, there are men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with f...

Why Atheism nowadays? “The father” in God is thoroughly refuted; equally so “the judge,” “the rewarder.” Also his “free will”: he does not hear⁠—and even if he did, he would not know how to help. The ...

What does all modern philosophy mainly do? Since Descartes⁠—and indeed more in defiance of him than on the basis of his procedure⁠—an attentat has been made on the part of all philosophers on the old ...

There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, with many rounds; but three of these are the most important. Once on a time men sacrificed human beings to their God, and perhaps just those they loved th...

Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long endeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidi...

The distance, and as it were the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision and insight: his world becomes profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming int...

Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or semi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its favourite microscopic labour of self-examination, and for its soft placidit...

Whoever has seen deeply into the world has doubtless divined what wisdom there is in the fact that men are superficial. It is their preservative instinct which teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, a...

To love mankind for God’s sake⁠—this has so far been the noblest and remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. That love to mankind, without any redeeming intention in the background, is only ...

The philosopher, as we free spirits understand him⁠—as the man of the greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general development of mankind⁠—will use religion for his disciplining and...

To be sure⁠—to make also the bad counter-reckoning against such religions, and to bring to light their secret dangers⁠—the cost is always excessive and terrible when religions do not operate as an edu...

He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously⁠—and even himself⁠—only in relation to his pupils. “Knowledge for its own sake”⁠—that is the last snare laid by morality: we are thereby completely ...

He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously⁠—and even himself⁠—only in relation to his pupils....

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

The charm of knowledge would be small, were it not so much shame has to be overcome on the way to it....

We are most dishonourable towards our God: he is not permitted to sin....

The tendency of a person to allow himself to be degraded, robbed, deceived, and exploited might be the diffidence of a God among men....

Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense of all others. Love to God also!...

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

One has regarded life carelessly, if one has failed to see the hand that⁠—kills with leniency....

If a man has character, he has also his typical experience, which always recurs....

The Sage as Astronomer.⁠—So long as thou feelest the stars as an “above thee,” thou lackest the eye of the discerning one....

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

He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it....

Many a peacock hides his tail from every eye⁠—and calls it his pride....

A man of genius is unbearable, unless he possess at least two things besides: gratitude and purity....

The degree and nature of a man’s sensuality extends to the highest altitudes of his spirit....

Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself....

With his principles a man seeks either to dominate, or justify, or honour, or reproach, or conceal his habits: two men with the same principles probably seek fundamentally different ends therewith....

He who despises himself, nevertheless esteems himself thereby, as a despiser....

A soul which knows that it is loved, but does not itself love, betrays its sediment: its dregs come up....

A thing that is explained ceases to concern us⁠—What did the God mean who gave the advice, “Know thyself!” Did it perhaps imply “Cease to be concerned about thyself! become objective!”⁠—And Socrates?⁠...

It is terrible to die of thirst at sea. Is it necessary that you should so salt your truth that it will no longer⁠—quench thirst?...

“Sympathy for all”⁠—would be harshness and tyranny for thee, my good neighbour....

Instinct.⁠—When the house is on fire one forgets even the dinner.⁠—Yes, but one recovers it from among the ashes....

Woman learns how to hate in proportion as she⁠—forgets how to charm....

The same emotions are in man and woman, but in different tempo, on that account man and woman never cease to misunderstand each other....

In the background of all their personal vanity, women themselves have still their impersonal scorn⁠—for “woman.”...

Fettered Heart, Free Spirit.⁠—When one firmly fetters one’s heart and keeps it prisoner, one can allow one’s spirit many liberties: I said this once before. But people do not believe it when I say so,...

One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become embarrassed....

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also....

Heavy, melancholy men turn lighter, and come temporarily to their surface, precisely by that which makes others heavy⁠—by hatred and love....

So cold, so icy, that one burns one’s finger at the touch of him! Every hand that lays hold of him shrinks back!⁠—And for that very reason many think him red-hot....

Who has not, at one time or another⁠—sacrificed himself for the sake of his good name?...

In affability there is no hatred of men, but precisely on that account a great deal too much contempt of men....

The maturity of man⁠—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play....

To be ashamed of one’s immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of which one is ashamed also of one’s morality....

One should part from life as Ulysses parted from Nausicaa⁠—blessing it rather than in love with it....

What? A great man? I always see merely the playactor of his own ideal....

When one trains one’s conscience, it kisses one while it bites....

The Disappointed One Speaks.⁠—“I listened for the echo and I heard only praise.”...

We all feign to ourselves that we are simpler than we are, we thus relax ourselves away from our fellows....

A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the animalization of God....

Discovering reciprocal love should really disenchant the lover with regard to the beloved. “What! She is modest enough to love even you? Or stupid enough? Or⁠—or⁠—”...

The Danger in Happiness.⁠—“Everything now turns out best for me, I now love every fate:⁠—who would like to be my fate?”...

Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents the Christians of today⁠—burning us....

The pia fraus is still more repugnant to the taste (the “piety”) of the free spirit (the “pious man of knowledge”) than the impia fraus. Hence the profound lack of judgment, in comparison with the Chu...

By means of music the very passions enjoy themselves....

A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been taken, to shut the ear even to the best counterarguments. Occasionally, therefore, a will to stupidity....

There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena....

The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and maligns it....

The advocates of a criminal are seldom artists enough to turn the beautiful terribleness of the deed to the advantage of the doer....

Our vanity is most difficult to wound just when our pride has been wounded....

To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them....

“You want to prepossess him in your favour? Then you must be embarrassed before him.”...

The immense expectation with regard to sexual love, and the coyness in this expectation, spoils all the perspectives of women at the outset....

Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman’s play is mediocre....

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

The will to overcome an emotion, is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, emotions....

There is an innocence of admiration: it is possessed by him to whom it has not yet occurred that he himself may be admired some day....

Our loathing of dirt may be so great as to prevent our cleaning ourselves⁠—“justifying” ourselves....

Sensuality often forces the growth of love too much, so that its root remains weak, and is easily torn up....

It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn author⁠—and that he did not learn it better....

To rejoice on account of praise is in many cases merely politeness of heart⁠—and the very opposite of vanity of spirit....

Even concubinage has been corrupted⁠—by marriage....

He who exults at the stake, does not triumph over pain, but because of the fact that he does not feel pain where he expected it. A parable....

When we have to change an opinion about anyone, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us....

A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great men.⁠—Yes, and then to get round them....

In the eyes of all true women science is hostile to the sense of shame. They feel as if one wished to peep under their skin with it⁠—or worse still! under their dress and finery....

The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it....

The devil has the most extensive perspectives for God; on that account he keeps so far away from him:⁠—the devil, in effect, as the oldest friend of knowledge....

What a person is begins to betray itself when his talent decreases⁠—when he ceases to show what he can do. Talent is also an adornment; an adornment is also a concealment....

The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason is that in reality they honour and love only themselves (or their own ideal, to express it more agreeably). Thus man wishes woman to be peacea...

One is punished best for one’s virtues....

He who cannot find the way to his ideal, lives more frivolously and shamelessly than the man without an ideal....

From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all evidence of truth....

Pharisaism is not a deterioration of the good man; a considerable part of it is rather an essential condition of being good....

The one seeks an accoucheur for his thoughts, the other seeks someone whom he can assist: a good conversation thus originates....

In intercourse with scholars and artists one readily makes mistakes of opposite kinds: in a remarkable scholar one not infrequently finds a mediocre man; and often, even in a mediocre artist, one find...

We do the same when awake as when dreaming: we only invent and imagine him with whom we have intercourse⁠—and forget it immediately....

In revenge and in love woman is more barbarous than man....

Advice As a Riddle.⁠—“If the band is not to break, bite it first⁠—secure to make!”...

The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a God....

The chastest utterance I ever heard: “Dans le véritable amour c’est l’âme qui enveloppe le corps.”...

Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is most difficult to us.⁠—Concerning the origin of many systems of morals....

When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is “the barr...

Comparing man and woman generally, one may say that woman would not have the genius for adornment, if she had not the instinct for the secondary role....

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....

From old Florentine novels⁠—moreover, from life: Buona femmina e mala femmina vuol bastone. —⁠Sacchetti, Nov. ’86....

To seduce their neighbour to a favourable opinion, and afterwards to believe implicitly in this opinion of their neighbour⁠—who can do this conjuring trick so well as women?...

That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of what was formerly considered good⁠—the atavism of an old ideal....

Around the hero everything becomes a tragedy; around the demigod everything becomes a satyr-play; and around God everything becomes⁠—what? perhaps a “world”?...

It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your permission to possess it;⁠—eh, my friends?...

“Where there is the tree of knowledge, there is always Paradise”: so say the most ancient and the most modern serpents....

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

Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology....

The sense of the tragic increases and declines with sensuousness....

Insanity in individuals is something rare⁠—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule....

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night....

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

One must repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill?...

One no longer loves one’s knowledge sufficiently after one has communicated it....

Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them....

“Our fellow-creature is not our neighbour, but our neighbour’s neighbour”:⁠—so thinks every nation....

Love brings to light the noble and hidden qualities of a lover⁠—his rare and exceptional traits: it is thus liable to be deceptive as to his normal character....

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!”...

In Sight of Every Party.⁠—A shepherd has always need of a bellwether⁠—or he has himself to be a wether occasionally....

One may indeed lie with the mouth; but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth....

To vigorous men intimacy is a matter of shame⁠—and something precious....

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

To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself....

In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame....

Pity has an almost ludicrous effect on a man of knowledge, like tender hands on a Cyclops....

One occasionally embraces some one or other, out of love to mankind (because one cannot embrace all); but this is what one must never confess to the individual....

One does not hate as long as one disesteems, but only when one esteems equal or superior....

Ye Utilitarians⁠—ye, too, love the utile only as a vehicle for your inclinations⁠—ye, too, really find the noise of its wheels insupportable!...

One loves ultimately one’s desires, not the thing desired....

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

With regard to what “truthfulness” is, perhaps nobody has ever been sufficiently truthful....

One does not believe in the follies of clever men: what a forfeiture of the rights of man!...

The consequences of our actions seize us by the forelock, very indifferent to the fact that we have meanwhile “reformed.”...

There is an innocence in lying which is the sign of good faith in a cause....

It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed....

The familiarity of superiors embitters one, because it may not be returned....

“I am affected, not because you have deceived me, but because I can no longer believe in you.”...

There is a haughtiness of kindness which has the appearance of wickedness....

“I dislike him.”⁠—Why?⁠—“I am not a match for him.”⁠—Did anyone ever answer so?...

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:⁠...

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:⁠...

Apart from the value of such assertions as “there is a categorical imperative in us,” one can always ask: What does such an assertion indicate about him who makes it? There are systems of morals which...

In contrast to laisser-aller, every system of morals is a sort of tyranny against “nature” and also against “reason,” that is, however, no objection, unless one should again decree by some system of m...

Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle: it was a master stroke of English instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week⁠...

There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was...

The old theological problem of “Faith” and “Knowledge,” or more plainly, of instinct and reason⁠—the question whether, in respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rati...

Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest processes of all “knowledge and cognizance”: there, as here, the ...

Quidquid luce fuit, tenebris agit: but also contrariwise. What we experience in dreams, provided we experience it often, pertains at last just as much to the general belongings of our soul as anything...

The difference among men does not manifest itself only in the difference of their lists of desirable things⁠—in their regarding different good things as worth striving for, and being disagreed as to t...

The Jews⁠—a people “born for slavery,” as Tacitus and the whole ancient world say of them; “the chosen people among the nations,” as they themselves say and believe⁠—the Jews performed the miracle of ...

It is to be inferred that there are countless dark bodies near the sun⁠—such as we shall never see. Among ourselves, this is an allegory; and the psychologist of morals reads the whole star-writing me...

The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Caesar Borgia) are fundamentally misunderstood, “nature” is misunderstood, so long as one seeks a “morbidness” in the constitution of these healthi...

All the systems of morals which address themselves with a view to their “happiness,” as it is called⁠—what else are they but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of danger from themselves i...

Inasmuch as in all ages, as long as mankind has existed, there have also been human herds (family alliances, communities, tribes, peoples, states, churches), and always a great number who obey in prop...

The man of an age of dissolution which mixes the races with one another, who has the inheritance of a diversified descent in his body⁠—that is to say, contrary, and often not only contrary, instincts ...

As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is only kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusive...

Let us at once say again what we have already said a hundred times, for people’s ears nowadays are unwilling to hear such truths⁠—our truths. We know well enough how offensive it sounds when anyone pl...

We, who hold a different belief⁠—we, who regard the democratic movement, not only as a degenerating form of political organization, but as equivalent to a degenerating, a waning type of man, as involv...

At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that which it has always been⁠—namely, resolutely montrer ses plaies, according to Balzac⁠—I would venture to protest against an improper and...

At the risk that moralizing may also reveal itself here as that which it has always been⁠—namely, resolutely montrer ses plaies, according to Balzac⁠—I would venture to protest against an improper and...

The dangers that beset the evolution of the philosopher are, in fact, so manifold nowadays, that one might doubt whether this fruit could still come to maturity. The extent and towering structure of t...

In relation to the genius, that is to say, a being who either engenders or produces⁠—both words understood in their fullest sense⁠—the man of learning, the scientific average man, has always something...

However gratefully one may welcome the objective spirit⁠—and who has not been sick to death of all subjectivity and its confounded ipsissimosity!⁠—in the end, however, one must learn caution even with...

When a philosopher nowadays makes known that he is not a skeptic⁠—I hope that has been gathered from the foregoing description of the objective spirit?⁠—people all hear it impatiently; they regard him...

As to how far the new warlike age on which we Europeans have evidently entered may perhaps favour the growth of another and stronger kind of skepticism, I should like to express myself preliminarily m...

Supposing, then, that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be skeptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would ...

I insist upon it that people finally cease confounding philosophical workers, and in general scientific men, with philosophers⁠—that precisely here one should strictly give “each his own,” and not giv...

It is always more obvious to me that the philosopher, as a man indispensable for the morrow and the day after the morrow, has ever found himself, and has been obliged to find himself, in contradiction...

It is difficult to learn what a philosopher is, because it cannot be taught: one must “know” it by experience⁠—or one should have the pride not to know it. The fact that at present people all talk of ...

Our Virtues?⁠—It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues, although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at ...

Our Virtues?⁠—It is probable that we, too, have still our virtues, although naturally they are not those sincere and massive virtues on account of which we hold our grandfathers in esteem and also at ...

As in the stellar firmament there are sometimes two suns which determine the path of one planet, and in certain cases suns of different colours shine around a single planet, now with red light, now wi...

To love one’s enemies? I think that has been well learnt: it takes place thousands of times at present on a large and small scale; indeed, at times the higher and sublimer thing takes place:⁠—we learn...

Let us be careful in dealing with those who attach great importance to being credited with moral tact and subtlety in moral discernment! They never forgive us if they have once made a mistake before u...

The psychologists of France⁠—and where else are there still psychologists nowadays?⁠—have never yet exhausted their bitter and manifold enjoyment of the bêtise bourgeoise, just as though⁠ ⁠… in short,...

The practice of judging and condemning morally, is the favourite revenge of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so, it is also a kind of indemnity for their being badly endowed by nature,...

Now that the praise of the “disinterested person” is so popular one must⁠—probably not without some danger⁠—get an idea of what people actually take an interest in, and what are the things generally w...

“It sometimes happens,” said a moralistic pedant and trifle-retailer, “that I honour and respect an unselfish man: not, however, because he is unselfish, but because I think he has a right to be usefu...

Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays⁠—and, if I gather rightly, no other religion is any longer preached⁠—let the psychologist have his ears open through all the vanity, through a...

The hybrid European⁠—a tolerably ugly plebeian, taken all in all⁠—absolutely requires a costume: he needs history as a storeroom of costumes. To be sure, he notices that none of the costumes fit him p...

The historical sense (or the capacity for divining quickly the order of rank of the valuations according to which a people, a community, or an individual has lived, the “divining instinct” for the rel...

Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism, all those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according to pleasure and pain, that is, according to accompanying circ...

We Immoralists.⁠—This world with which we are concerned, in which we have to fear and love, this almost invisible, inaudible world of delicate command and delicate obedience, a world of “almost” in ev...

Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid ourselves, we free spirits⁠—well, we will labour at it with all our perversity and love, and not tire of “perfecting” ourselves in our vi...

I hope to be forgiven for discovering that all moral philosophy hitherto has been tedious and has belonged to the soporific appliances⁠—and that “virtue,” in my opinion, has been more injured by the t...

In these later ages, which may be proud of their humanity, there still remains so much fear, so much superstition of the fear, of the “cruel wild beast,” the mastering of which constitutes the very pr...

Perhaps what I have said here about a “fundamental will of the spirit” may not be understood without further details; I may be allowed a word of explanation.⁠—That imperious something which is popular...

Learning alters us, it does what all nourishment does that does not merely “conserve”⁠—as the physiologist knows. But at the bottom of our souls, quite “down below,” there is certainly something untea...

Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to enlighten men about “woman as she is”⁠—this is one of the worst developments of the general uglifying of Europe. For what must these clumsy ...

It betrays corruption of the instincts⁠—apart from the fact that it betrays bad taste⁠—when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were prove...

Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is managed! Woman does not understand what food means, and she in...

There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences, little handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole society suddenly crystallises itself. Among these is the incidental remark of Madam...

I have no doubt that every noble woman will oppose what Dante and Goethe believed about woman⁠—the former when he sang, “ella guardava suso, ed io in lei,” and the latter when he interpreted it, “the ...

How the longest ennui flees, When a man comes to our knees! Age, alas! and science staid, Furnish even weak virtue aid. Sombre garb and silence meet: Dress for every dame⁠—discreet. Whom I thank when ...

Woman has hitherto been treated by men like birds, which, losing their way, have come down among them from an elevation: as something delicate, fragile, wild, strange, sweet, and animating⁠—but as som...

To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of “man and woman,” to deny here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal t...

The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect by men as at present⁠—this belongs to the tendency and fundamental taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to o...

I heard, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner’s overture to the Mastersingers: it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy, latter-day art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries o...

I heard, once again for the first time, Richard Wagner’s overture to the Mastersingers: it is a piece of magnificent, gorgeous, heavy, latter-day art, which has the pride to presuppose two centuries o...

We “good Europeans,” we also have hours when we allow ourselves a warmhearted patriotism, a plunge and relapse into old loves and narrow views⁠—I have just given an example of it⁠—hours of national ex...

Whether we call it “civilization,” or “humanising,” or “progress,” which now distinguishes the European, whether we call it simply, without praise or blame, by the political formula the democratic mov...

I hear with pleasure that our sun is moving rapidly towards the constellation Hercules: and I hope that the men on this earth will do like the sun. And we foremost, we good Europeans!...

There was a time when it was customary to call Germans “deep” by way of distinction; but now that the most successful type of new Germanism is covetous of quite other honours, and perhaps misses “smar...

The “good old” time is past, it sang itself out in Mozart⁠—how happy are we that his rococo still speaks to us, that his “good company,” his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the Chinese and ...

What a torture are books written in German to a reader who has a third ear! How indignantly he stands beside the slowly turning swamp of sounds without tune and rhythms without dance, which Germans ca...

How little the German style has to do with harmony and with the ear, is shown by the fact that precisely our good musicians themselves write badly. The German does not read aloud, he does not read for...

There are two kinds of geniuses: one which above all engenders and seeks to engender, and another which willingly lets itself be fructified and brings forth. And similarly, among the gifted nations, t...

Every nation has its own “Tartuffery,” and calls that its virtue.⁠—One does not know⁠—cannot know, the best that is in one....

What Europe owes to the Jews?⁠—Many things, good and bad, and above all one thing of the nature both of the best and the worst: the grand style in morality, the fearfulness and majesty of infinite dem...

It must be taken into the bargain, if various clouds and disturbances⁠—in short, slight attacks of stupidity⁠—pass over the spirit of a people that suffers and wants to suffer from national nervous fe...

They are not a philosophical race⁠—the English: Bacon represents an attack on the philosophical spirit generally, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke, an abasement, and a depreciation of the idea of a “philosophe...

There are truths which are best recognized by mediocre minds, because they are best adapted for them, there are truths which only possess charms and seductive power for mediocre spirits:⁠—one is pushe...

Even at present France is still the seat of the most intellectual and refined culture of Europe, it is still the high school of taste; but one must know how to find this “France of taste.” He who belo...

I hold that many precautions should be taken against German music. Suppose a person loves the South as I love it⁠—as a great school of recovery for the most spiritual and the most sensuous ills, as a ...

Owing to the morbid estrangement which the nationality-craze has induced and still induces among the nations of Europe, owing also to the shortsighted and hasty-handed politicians, who with the help o...

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 am...

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 am...

Corruption⁠—as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out among the instincts, and that the foundation of the emotions, called “life,” is convulsed⁠—is something radically different according ...

To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one’s will on a par with that of others: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the ...

In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another...

Vanity is one of the things which are perhaps most difficult for a noble man to understand: he will be tempted to deny it, where another kind of man thinks he sees it self-evidently. The problem for h...

A species originates, and a type becomes established and strong in the long struggle with essentially constant unfavourable conditions. On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders tha...

There is an instinct for rank, which more than anything else is already the sign of a high rank; there is a delight in the nuances of reverence which leads one to infer noble origin and habits. The re...

It cannot be effaced from a man’s soul what his ancestors have preferably and most constantly done: whether they were perhaps diligent economizers attached to a desk and a cashbox, modest and citizen-...

At the risk of displeasing innocent ears, I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as “we,” other beings must naturally be in sub...

“One can only truly esteem him who does not look out for himself.” —⁠Goethe to Rath Schlosser....

The Chinese have a proverb which mothers even teach their children: “Siao-sin” (“Make thy heart small”). This is the essentially fundamental tendency in latter-day civilizations. I have no doubt that ...

What, after all, is ignobleness?⁠—Words are vocal symbols for ideas; ideas, however, are more or less definite mental symbols for frequently returning and concurring sensations, for groups of sensatio...

The more a psychologist⁠—a born, an unavoidable psychologist and soul-diviner⁠—turns his attention to the more select cases and individuals, the greater is his danger of being suffocated by sympathy: ...

The intellectual haughtiness and loathing of every man who has suffered deeply⁠—it almost determines the order of rank how deeply men can suffer⁠—the chilling certainty, with which he is thoroughly im...

That which separates two men most profoundly is a different sense and grade of purity. What does it matter about all their honesty and reciprocal usefulness, what does it matter about all their mutual...

Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise ...

A man who strives after great things, looks upon everyone whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and hindrance⁠—or as a temporary resting-place. His peculiar lofty boun...

The Problem of Those Who Wait.⁠—Happy chances are necessary, and many incalculable elements, in order that a higher man in whom the solution of a problem is dormant, may yet take action, or “break for...

He who does not wish to see the height of a man, looks all the more sharply at what is low in him, and in the foreground⁠—and thereby betrays himself....

In all kinds of injury and loss the lower and coarser soul is better off than the nobler soul: the dangers of the latter must be greater, the probability that it will come to grief and perish is in fa...

It is too bad! Always the old story! When a man has finished building his house, he finds that he has learnt unawares something which he ought absolutely to have known before he⁠—began to build. The e...

—Wanderer, who art thou? I see thee follow thy path without scorn, without love, with unfathomable eyes, wet and sad as a plummet which has returned to the light insatiated out of every depth⁠—what di...

Men of profound sadness betray themselves when they are happy: they have a mode of seizing upon happiness as though they would choke and strangle it, out of jealousy⁠—ah, they know only too well that ...

“Bad! Bad! What? Does he not⁠—go back?” Yes! But you misunderstand him when you complain about it. He goes back like everyone who is about to make a great spring....

—“Will people believe it of me? But I insist that they believe it of me: I have always thought very unsatisfactorily of myself and about myself, only in very rare cases, only compulsorily, always with...

—“But what has happened to you?”⁠—“I do not know,” he said, hesitatingly; “perhaps the Harpies have flown over my table.”⁠—It sometimes happens nowadays that a gentle, sober, retiring man becomes sudd...

If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a noble self-control, to praise only where one does not agree⁠—otherwise in fact one would praise oneself, which is contrary to go...

To live in a vast and proud tranquility; always beyond⁠ ⁠… To have, or not to have, one’s emotions, one’s For and Against, according to choice; to lower oneself to them for hours; to seat oneself on t...

The greatest events and thoughts⁠—the greatest thoughts, however, are the greatest events⁠—are longest in being comprehended: the generations which are contemporary with them do not experience such ev...

“Here is the prospect free, the mind exalted.”7 [The words of Dr. Marianus.]⁠—But there is a reverse kind of man, who is also upon a height, and has also a free prospect⁠—but looks downwards....

What is noble? What does the word “noble” still mean for us nowadays? How does the noble man betray himself, how is he recognized under this heavy overcast sky of the commencing plebeianism, by which ...

There are men who are unavoidably intellectual, let them turn and twist themselves as they will, and hold their hands before their treacherous eyes⁠—as though the hand were not a betrayer; it always c...

In the writings of a recluse one always hears something of the echo of the wilderness, something of the murmuring tones and timid vigilance of solitude; in his strongest words, even in his cry itself,...

Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood. The latter perhaps wounds his vanity; but the former wounds his heart, his sympathy, which always says: “Ah, why woul...

Man, a complex, mendacious, artful, and inscrutable animal, uncanny to the other animals by his artifice and sagacity, rather than by his strength, has invented the good conscience in order finally to...

A philosopher: that is a man who constantly experiences, sees, hears, suspects, hopes, and dreams extraordinary things; who is struck by his own thoughts as if they came from the outside, from above a...

A man who says: “I like that, I take it for my own, and mean to guard and protect it from everyone”; a man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an opinion, keep hold of a wom...

The Olympian Vice.⁠—Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking minds⁠—“Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every think...

The genius of the heart, as that great mysterious one possesses it, the tempter-god and born rat-catcher of consciences, whose voice can descend into the netherworld of every soul, who neither speaks ...

Alas! what are you, after all, my written and painted thoughts! Not long ago you were so variegated, young and malicious, so full of thorns and secret spices, that you made me sneeze and laugh⁠—and no...

Midday of Life! Oh, season of delight! My summer’s park! Uneaseful joy to look, to lurk, to hark⁠— I peer for friends, am ready day and night⁠— Where linger ye, my friends? The time is right! Is not t...

Like the river Ganges: presto. ↩ Like the tortoise: lento. ↩ Like the frog: staccato. ↩ Pages 54⁠–⁠55 of Schopenhauer’s Basis of Morality, translated by Arthur B. Bullock, M.A. (1903). ↩ An expression...