No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.
It is possible to conceive of a society blessed with so great a consciousness of its own power as to indulge in the most aristocratic luxury of letting its wrong-doers go scot-free. -.
Everywhere the voice of those who preach death is heard; and the earth is full of those to whom one must preach death. Or “eternal life” – that is the same to me, if only they pass away quickly. Thus spoke Zarathustra.
The fool interrupts – The writer of this book is no misanthrope; today one pays too dearly for hatred of man.
Religions belong to the rabble; after coming into contact with religious people I always feel that I must wash my hands.
Towards the throne they all strive: it is their madness – as if happiness sat on the throne! Ofttimes sitteth filth on the throne. – and ofttimes also the throne on filth.
Human society: it is an experiment, this I teach – a long search: but it searches for the commander! – an experiment, oh my brothers! And not a “contract”!
It was likewise never doubted that all the antecedentia of an action, its causes, were to be sought in the consciousness and could be discovered there if one sought them – as ‘motives’: for otherwise one would not have been free to perform it, responsible for it.
They arise from faith, hope and charity – the Christian virtues. – In reality all these supposed explanations are consequential states and as it were translations of pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings into a false dialect: one is in a state in which one can experience hope because the physiological basic feeling is once more strong and ample; one trusts in God because the feeling.
And we had made a nice misuse of that ‘empiricism’, we had created the world on the basis of it as a world of causes, as a world of will, as a world of spirit.
One has deprived becoming of its innocence if being in this or that state is traced back to will, to intentions, to accountable acts: the doctrine of will has been invented essentially for the purpose of punishment, that is of finding guilty.
But the state tells lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies – and whatever it has it has stolen. Everything about it is false;.
In all ages one has wanted to ‘improve’ men: this above all is what morality has meant. But one word can conceal the most divergent tendencies. Both the taming of the beast man and the breeding of a certain species of man has been called ‘improvement’:.
Enemy” you shall say but not “villain”, “sick” you shall say but not “wretch”, “fool” you shall say but not “sinner”.
One has watched life badly if one has not also seen the hand that considerately – kills.
For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life thus even constitutes an objection to him, a question-mark as to his wisdom, a piece of unwisdom.
What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.
Viewed from a distant star, our planet would appear to be an unhappy planet, full of unhappy repulsive people, dissatisfied with themselves, with the Earth, with Life itself and knowing no greater pleasure than causing pain, to themselves and to others.
Language belongs in its origin to the age of the most rudimentary form of psychology: we find ourselves in the midst of a rude fetishism when we call to mind the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language – which is to say, of reason.
To sacrifice God for nothingness – this paradoxical mystery of the ultimate cruelty has been reserved for the rising generation; we all know something thereof already.
Something might be true, even if it were also harmful and dangerous in the highest degree; indeed, it might be part of the essential nature of existence that to understand it completely would lead to our own destruction. The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much “truth” he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he ‘needs’ to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.