Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzschewas a German philosopher, cultural critic, poet and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest ever to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869, at the age of 24. Nietzsche resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life, and...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth15 October 1844
CityRocken, Germany
CountryGermany
Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.
Books for all the world are always foul-smelling books: the smell of small people clings to them.
Books for general reading always smell bad; the odor of common people hangs around them.
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.
A politician divides mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.
God is a gross answer, an indelicacy against us thinkers- at bottom merely a gross prohibition for us: you shall not think!
Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
Sing me a new song; the world is transfigured; all the Heavens are rejoicing.
Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.
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.
Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
I am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman without a single drop of bad blood - certainly not German blood.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.