Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes

A collection of quotes by Friedrich Nietzsche.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher, poet, and cultural critic. Born in the town of Röcken, Prussia, Nietzsche developed a keen interest in literature, music, and classical studies from an early age. He went on to study philology, focusing on ancient Greek and Roman texts, at the University of Bonn and later at the University of Leipzig.

Throughout his intellectual career, Nietzsche challenged traditional moral and religious values, advocating for a reevaluation of prevailing beliefs. His most famous works include "Thus Spoke Zarathustra," "Beyond Good and Evil," and "On the Genealogy of Morality." Nietzsche's philosophy emphasized the concept of the "Übermensch" or "Superman" – an individual who transcends societal norms, embraces personal will, and lives according to their own values.

However, Nietzsche's ideas were often misinterpreted, leading to accusations of nihilism and moral relativism. In his later years, Nietzsche suffered from deteriorating mental and physical health, ultimately succumbing to mental illness and living the last years of his life in seclusion. Despite his troubled final years, Nietzsche's writings have had a lasting influence on various fields, including philosophy, literature, psychology, and art.

Nietzsche's work continues to be widely studied and debated, with scholars exploring themes such as the nature of truth, the role of religion, the impact of power structures, and the subjective nature of morality. His ideas have had a profound impact on existentialism, postmodernism, and the development of Western thought in the 20th century.

Language as putative science. - The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather that with words he was expressing supreame knowledge of things; language is, in fact, the first stage of occupation with science. Here, too, it is the belief that the truth has been found out of which the mightiest sources of energy have flowed. A great deal later - only now - it dawns on men that in their belief in language they have propagated a tremendous error. Happily, it is too late for the evolution of reason, which depends on this belief, to be put back. - Logic too depends on presuppositions with which nothing in the real world corresponds, for example on the presupposition that there are identical things, that the same thing is identical at different points of time: but this science came into existence through the opposite belief (that such conditions do obtain in the real world). It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no real circle, no absolute magnitude.

Friedrich Nietzsche