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Quotes by German Authors
"The world had been divided into two parts that sought to annihilate each other because they both desired the same thing, namely the liberation of the oppressed, the elimination of violence, and the establishment of permanent peace."
"All that exists is just and unjust and is equally justified in both respects."
"There is a saying that, paper is more patient than man."
"Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time."
"Ah, brothers, this God which I created was human work and human madness, like all gods!He was human, and only a poor piece of man and Ego: this phantom came to me from my own fire and ashes, that is the truth! It did not come from the 'beyond'!"
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."
"I deny morality as I deny alchemy."
"As yet hath his knowledge not learned to smile, and to be without jealously ; as yet hath his gushing passion not become calm in beauty."
"The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god."
"Joy, sorrow, tears, lamentation, laughter - to all these music gives voice, but in such a way that we are transported from the world of unrest to a world of peace, and see reality in a new way, as if we were sitting by a mountain lake and contemplating hills and woods and clouds in the tranquil and fathomless water."
"Sometimes it is harder to accede to a thing than it is to see its truth."
"There exists no more repulsive and desolate creature in the world than the man who has evaded his genius and who now looks furtively to left and right, behind him and all about him. In the end such a man becomes impossible to get hold of, since he is wholly exterior, without kernel, a tattered, painted bag of clothes, a decked-out ghost that cannot inspire even fear and certainly not pity."
"There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst."
"When the gratitude of many to one throws away all shame, we behold fame."
"Perfectionism, of course, was something which even as a young man he had come to see as the innermost essence of talent."
"Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience."
"Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal."
"On one part of the footpath where a thin trickle of water from a small spring kept it damp, I found a swarm of small, blue butterflies drinking the water. I only went that way on sunny days and each time the dense, blue swarm was there, and each time it was a holiday."
"In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary."
"We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value."
"Because we have for millenia made moral, aesthetic, religious demands on the world, looked upon it with blind desire, passion or fear, and abandoned ourselves to the bad habits of illogical thinking, this world has gradually become so marvelously variegated, frightful, meaningful, soulful, it has acquired color - but we have been the colorists: it is the human intellect that has made appearances appear and transported its erroneous basic conceptions into things."
"Writers whose thoughts are expressed with clarity and precision are assumed by readers to be superficial. Where the meaning is obscured, then readers give more attention and consider the fruit of their labour more valuable."
"Is the world really beautified by the fact that man thinks it beautiful? He has humanized it, that is all."
"Man is something that shall be overcome.Man is a rope,tied between beast and overman - a rope over an abyss.What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end."
"This world, the eternally imperfect, the eternal and imperfect image of a contradiction " an intoxicating joy to its imperfect creator " that is what I once thought the world."
"Association with other people corrupts our character, especially when we have none."
"And if your friend does evil to you, say to him, ''I forgive you for what you did to me, but how can I forgive you for what you did to yourself?"
"When one is young, one venerates and despises without that art of nuances which constitutes the best gain of life, and it is only fair that one has to pay dearly for having assaulted men and things in this manner with Yes and No. Everything is arranged so that the worst of tastes, the taste for the unconditional, should be cruelly fooled and abused until a man learns to put a little art into his feelings and rather to risk trying even what is artificial - as the real artists of life do."
"Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies."
"But how can we venture to reprove or praise the universe! Let us beware of attributing to it heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is neither perfect nor beautiful nor noble, and has no desire to become any of these; it is by no means striving to imitate mankind! It is quite impervious to all our aesthetic and moral judgments! It has likewise no impulse to self-preservation or impulses of any kind; neither does it know any laws. Let us beware of saying there are laws in nature. There are only necessities: there is no one to command, no one to obey, no one to transgress..."
"There is a certain right by which we many deprive a man of life, but none by which we may deprive him of death; this is mere cruelty."
"Necessity is not an established fact but an interpretation."
"Youth's longing misconceived inconsistency.Those whom I deemedChanged to my kin, the friends of whom I dreamed,Have aged and lost our old affinity:One has to change to stay akin to me."
"In truth,there was only one christian and he died on the cross."
"If we possess a why of life we can put up with almost any how."
"It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters."
"But one thing is the thought, another thing is the deed, and another thing is the idea of the deed. The wheel of causality doth not roll between them."
"At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid."
"All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth."
"Dangerous Helpfulness. There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than afterwards to offer them their prescriptions for making life easier -- their Christianity, for example."
"What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal."
"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."
"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point."
"Oh, my friends, that your self be in your deed as the mother is in her child - let that be your word concerning virtue!"
"Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning of the earth! . . . Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings. . . . Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth-yes, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!"
"We have art in order not to die of the truth."
"Whoever has witnessed another's ideal becomes his inexorable judge and as it were his evil conscience."
"Be careful when you cast out your demons that you don't throw away the best of yourself."
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