Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, classical philologist, and cultural critic. He challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality, declaring that God is dead and proposing a revaluation of values. The quotes below are attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche, organized by topic.
Browse Friedrich Nietzsche by topic
Friedrich Nietzsche on God
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”
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“Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.”
Letter to Elisabeth Nietzsche, Bonn, 1865-06-11, [ specific citation needed ] quoted as epigraph in Walter Kaufmann, The Faith of a Heretic (1961)
Friedrich Nietzsche on Knowledge
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“Postcard to Franz Overbeck , Sils-Maria (30 July 1881), tr. Walter Kaufmann , The Portable Nietzsche (1954)”
I am utterly amazed, utterly enchanted! I have a precursor , and what a precursor! I hardly knew Spinoza : that I should have turned to him just now , was inspired by "instinct." Not only is his overtendency like mine—namely to make all knowledge the most powerful affect — but in five main points of his doctrine I recognize myself; this most unusual and loneliest thinker is closest to me precisely -
“Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.”
Notebooks (Late 1886 – Spring 1887) | Popular usage: "There are no facts, only interpretations. -
“Notebooks (Late 1886 – Spring 1887)”
Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations. -
“Popular usage: "There are no facts, only interpretations.”
Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts," I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations. -
“In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist , for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a highly dangerous experiment; now that I know it did not ruin me, I also know what significance it had for me — it was the most severe test of my character.”
Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887) -
“In Germany there is much complaining about my "eccentricities." But since it is not known where my center is, it won't be easy to find out where or when I have thus far been "eccentric." That I was a philologist , for example, meant that I was outside my center (which fortunately does not mean that I was a poor philologist). Likewise, I now regard my having been a Wagnerian as eccentric. It was a ”
Letter to Carl Fuchs (14 December 1887) -
“I now myself live, in every detail, striving for wisdom, while I formerly merely worshipped and idolized the wise.”
Letter to Mathilde Mayer, July 16, 1878, cited in Karl Jaspers , Nietzsche (Baltimore: 1997), p. 46
Friedrich Nietzsche on Life
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Become who you are.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.”
Friedrich Nietzsche on Love
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.”
Friedrich Nietzsche on Mind
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
Friedrich Nietzsche on Truth
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.”
Friedrich Nietzsche on Virtue
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
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Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche:
“The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.”
Things actually not said by Friedrich Nietzsche
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Friedrich Nietzsche but are in fact from someone else. Did Friedrich Nietzsche say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
Although evocative of Nietzsche's recurring use of dance and music as metaphors for life-affirmation, this exact line does not appear in any of his published or notebook works. It is a 20th-century aphorism with no identified original author.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
This sentence is widely circulated online as Nietzsche but does not appear in any of his published or notebook works. The actual author has not been identified.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“A moral system valid for all is basically immoral.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Generally attributed to Nietzsche, this is a quotation from Curtis Cate's Friedrich Nietzsche: A Biography (2003) and is the author's interpretation of Nietzsche's Aphorism 221 ( Beyond Good and Evil )
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“Those who dance appear insane to those who cannot hear the music.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: First recorded appearance: Germaine de Staël 's On Germany (1813). ". . . sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Commonly attributed to Nietzsche, but is most likely from Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“If you crush a cockroach, you're a hero. If you crush a beautiful butterfly, you're a villain. Morals have aesthetic criteria.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Sometimes attributed to Nietzsche , the quote appears in none of his works, the likely origin is a 2012 tweet , where it was not attributed to Nietzsche. There are no earlier examples on reddit and also none on google books.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Often misattributed to Nietzsche, and was actually said by Rudyard Kipling during a 1935 interview that was published in Reader's Digest in 1959.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“They muddy the waters to make them look deep.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: A google books search with dates restricted to 1800-2005 finds only three sources, the earliest one being Spirituality for the Skeptic: The Thoughtful Love of Life by Robert C. Solomon (2002), which attributes it to Nietzsche but gives no specific source.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“Strong people are easy to love but difficult to live with.”
This sentiment does not appear in any of Nietzsche's published works or in his Nachlass, despite frequent attribution to him on social media. The phrasing is twentieth- or twenty-first-century English and the original source has not been identified. Nietzsche scholars including Walter Kaufmann and Bernard Reginster have catalogued spurious Nietzsche quotes; this is among them.
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“Rather than cope with the unbearable loneliness of their condition men will continue to seek their shattered God, and for His sake they will love the very serpents that dwell among His ruins.”
As quoted by J. P. Stern in an interview conducted by Bryan Magee in The Great Philosophers : A History of Western Philosophy (1987) (Disputed.)
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“You know these things as thoughts, but your thoughts are not your experiences, they are an echo and after-effect of your experiences: as when your room trembles when a carriage goes past. I however am sitting in the carriage, and often I am the carriage itself.”
Attributed across social media to TSZ. Is actually quoted in TSZ, Penguin Classics, Reg Hollingdale translation, in the introduction pg 12. Attributed to 'posthumously produced notes' [Nachlass?] Hollingdale continues.' In a man who thinks like this, the dichotomy between thinking and feeling, intellect and passion, has really disappeared. He feels his thoughts. He can fall in love with an idea. An idea can make him ill.' (Disputed.)
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“Nobody is more inferior than those who insist on being equal.”
Often attributed to Nietzsche especially on social media, but no citation is ever given, and the only source I can find that states Nietzche said this was a mock interview by Richard Marshall. (Disputed.)
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Did Friedrich Nietzsche say this? No.
“All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not the truth.”
Often attributed to Nietzsche especially on social media, but no citation is ever given. Dr Zuleyka Zevallos explains there is a similar quote on "Notes" (1888), translated in The Portable Nietzsche (edited by Walter Kaufmann) but it doesn't mentions power: https://socialscienceinsights.com/2015/01/20/all-things-are-subject-to-interpretation-whichever-interpretation-prevails-at-a-given-time-is-a-function-of-power/ (Disputed.)