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Quotes by Philosopher
"I and me are always too deeply in conversation: how could I endure it,if there were not a friend?The friend of the hermit is always the third one: the third one is the float which prevents the conversation of the two from sinking into the depth."
98
"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
97
"Man is the cruelest animal," says Zarathustra. "When gazing at tragedies, bull-fights, crucifixations he hath hitherto felt happier than at any other time on Earth. And when he invented Hell...lo, Hell was his Heaven on Earth"; he could put up with suffering now, by contemplating the eternal punishment of his oppressors in the other world."
97
"There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to inquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult."
97
"The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools."
97
"For my part, while I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race."
97
"Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope."
96
"Seven times have I despised my soul: The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks."
96
"I've come across people who say that there is a sort of inborn restlessness in the human spirit and an urge to change one's abode; for man is endowed with a mind which is changeable and and unsettled: nowhere at rest, it darts about and directs its thoughts to all places known and unknown, a wanderer which cannot endure repose and delights chiefly in novelty."
96
"No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men."
95
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
95
"Women are still cats and birds. Or at the best, cows."
95
"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
95
"God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures."
95
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!"
95
"Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself."
94
"It is the worst people in your life that teach you the best lessons."
94
"Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
94
"The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things."
94
"Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored."
93
"What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms. What I touch, what resists me--that is what I understand. And these two certainties--my appetite for the absolute and for unity and the impossibility of reducing this world to a rational and reasonable principle--I also know that I cannot reconcile them. What other truth can I admit without lying, without bringing in a hope which I lack and which means nothing within the limits of my condition?"
93
"Youth does not require reasons for living, it only needs pretexts."
92
"Your head is a lit chamber."
92
"The amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time."
92
"No finite point has meaning without an infinite reference point."
92
"Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose."
92
"It is incomprehensible that God should exist, and it is incomprehensible that he should not exist."
92
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
92
"When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard."
92
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
92
"Life inspires more dread than death - it is life which is the great unknown."
91
"When you are at your lowest God is getting ready to take you to your highest."
91
"My soul's a burden to me, I've had enough of it. I'm eager to be in that country, where the sun kills every question. I don't belong here."
91
"We are living in the era of premeditation and the perfect crime. Our criminals are no longer helpless children who could plead love as their excuse. On the contrary, they are adults and the have the perfect alibi: philosophy, which can be used for any purpose - even for transforming murderers into judges."
91
"You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge."
91
"Respect life, revere life. There is nothing more holy than life itself."
90
"If heaven really exists: then heaven is the job, hell is unemployment, while life is merely an interview."
89
"To be is to be the value of a variable."
89
"The individual is not accountable to society for his actions in so far as these concern the interests of no person but himself."
89
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