Friedrich Nietzsche

"The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises."

"Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love."

"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."

"Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes."

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

"For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication."

"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all."

"Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive."

"Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

"Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed."

"I consist of body and soul - in the worlds of a child. And why shouldn't we speak like children? But the enlightened, the knowledgealbe would say: I am body through and through, nothing more; and the soul is just a word for something on the body."

"I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage"

"You may lie with your mouth, but with the mouth you make as you do so you none the less tell the truth."

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once."

"All I need is a sheet of paperand something to write with, and thenI can turn the world upside down."

"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"

"Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes."

"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all."

"Poets are shameless with their experiences: they exploit them."

"The spiritualization of sensuality is called love: it is a great triumph over Christianity."