Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.

The only excuse for God is that he doesn't exist.

Do not paint a picture either of God or the devil on your walls: this will ruin both your walls and the atmosphere.

Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.

God is dead, but considering the state the species man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.

A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.

Just look at the faces of the great Christians! They are the faces of great haters.

In short, then, the religious cult is based upon the representations of sorcery between man and man, and the sorcerer is older than the priest.

For out of fear and need each religion is born, creeping into existence on the byways or reason.

I want to know whether you are a person devoted to creating or to exchanging in some respect or other: as a creator you belong tothe free, as an exchanger you are their slave and instrument.

We deceive ourselves when giving respect to the person for whom we have surrendered ourselves, when we respectively expect them to be as we would wish them to be.

Be generous in nature and thought; for this wins respect and gives confidence and power.

The dyed-in-the-wool teacher takes everything seriously only with respect to his students--himself included.

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

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.

Our salvation lies not in knowing, but in creating!

Better know nothing than half-know many things.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

Every attainment, every step forward in knowledge, follows from courage, from hardness against oneself, from cleanliness in relation to oneself.

From whatever you wish to know and measure you must take your leave, at least for a time. Only when you have left the town can yousee how high its towers rise above the houses.

Partial knowledge is more triumphant than complete knowledge; it takes things to be simpler than they are, and so makes its theory more popular and convincing.

Genuine historical knowledge requires nobility of character, a profound understanding of human existence - not detachment and objectivity.

The strongest knowledge (that of the total freedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: for it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity.

Time, space, and causality are only metaphors of knowledge, with which we explain things to ourselves.