Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.

All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.

Art is the proper task of life.

You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.

Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.

All truth is simple... is that not doubly a lie?

We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.

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

The 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death.'

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

The great epochs of our life are the occasions when we gain the courage to rebaptize our evil qualities as our best qualities.

Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.

There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

Woman was God's second mistake.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one's experiences in common.

There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.

In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.

It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.

The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.

Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.

Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.

When one has not had a good father, one must create one.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.

Art raises its head where creeds relax.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.

I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his 'divine service.'

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.

He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.

'Evil men have no songs.' How is it that the Russians have songs?

There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.

War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.

An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.

The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!

Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.

The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

Stupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.

All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

The doer alone learneth.

Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.

Without music, life would be a mistake.

If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.

A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Success has always been a great liar.

Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.