Thus Spoke Zarathustra Quotes

“Thus I spoke, more and more softly; for I was afraid of my own thoughts and the thoughts behind my thoughts.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Like many others of the younger generation, for Magda and Fritz the last years of the sixties were the utopian meaning of paradise on earth, the more so for Magda who had graduated with honours. She had based a part of her thesis on the philosophical perspective of the Expressionist movement, particularly what the philosopher Nietzsche wrote in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in which, amongst other things, he stated: ''What does my shadow matter?... Let it run after me!... I shall out-run it...'' And that's what Magda wanted to do with her life: declare herself independent from conventional thought and from past memories.”
― Anton Sammut, Memories of Recurrent Echoes

“The noble man wants to create something new and a new virtue. The good want the old, and that old should be preserved.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“This crown of the laughter, the rosary crown: to you, my brothers, I throw this crown! I pronounced laughter holy: you higher men, learn — to laugh!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Such was also the case with Nietzsche, a volcanic genius if ever there was one. Here, too, there is passionate exteriorization of an inward fire, but in a manner that is both deviated and demented; we have in mind here, not the Nietzschian philosophy, which taken literally is without interest, but his poetical work, whose most intense expression is in part his ‘Zarathustra’. What this highly uneven book manifests above all is the violent reaction of an a priori profound soul against a mediocre and paralyzing cultural environment; Nietzsche’s fault was to have only a sense of grandeur in the absence of all intellectual discernment. ‘Zarathustra’ is basically the cry of a grandeur trodden underfoot, whence comes the heart-rending authenticity – grandeur precisely – of certain passages; not all of them, to be sure, and above all not those which express a half-Machiavellian, half-Darwinian philosophy, or minor literary cleverness. Be that as it may, Nietzsche’s misfortune, like that of other men of genius, such as Napoleon, was to be born after the Renaissance and not before it; which indicates evidently an aspect of their nature, for there is no such thing as chance.”
― Frithjof Schuon, To Have a Center

“As soon as you feel yourself against me you have ceased to understand my position and consequently my arguments! You have to be the victim of the same passion!”
― Nietzsche

“But strangers and the poor may pluck for themselves the fruit from my tree: that causes less shame. But beggars should be entirely done away with! Truly, it annoys one to give to them and it annoys one not to give to them.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“You love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?”
― Fredrick Nietzche

“Enemy" you shall say but not "villain", "sick" you shall say but not "wretch", "fool" you shall say but not "sinner".”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“Back then you carried your ashes to the mountain; would you now carry your fire into the alley?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“You love your virtue as the mother her child; but when was it heard of a mother wanting to be paid for her love?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“And he who would not languish among men, must learn to drink out of all glasses; and he who would keep clean among men, must know how to wash himself even with dirty water.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“The man consummatig his life dies his death triumphantly,surrounded by men filled with hope and making solmn vows, thus one should learn to die.

Friedrich Nietzsche - thus spoke zarathustra.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“The Gods are dead. They all died laughing the day when one old Grim Beard of a God got up and said: "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”
― Nietzsche-F

“and what fantasy can there possibly be in misery? You sense that it will at length grow weary, that it is exhausting itself in constant tension, this inexhaustible fantasy, because after all one matures, outgrows one's former ideals; they are shattered into dust and fragments; and if you have no other life, it behoves you to construct one from those same fragments.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

“You came close to them and yet passed by; that they will never forgive. You pass over and beyond them: but the higher you ascend, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. But most of all they hate those who fly.”
― Fredrich Neitzsche

“Tel fut aussi le cas d'un Nietzsche, génie volcanique s'il en est ; ici encore - mais d'une façon à la fois déviée et démentielle - il y a extériorisation passionnée d'un feu intérieur ; nous pensons ici non à la philosophie nietzschéenne, qui dans sa littéralité est sans intérêt (17), mais à l'oeuvre poétique dont l'expression la plus intense est en partie le "Zarathoustra". Ce que ce livre, d'ailleurs fort inégal, manifeste avant tout, c'est la réaction violente d'une âme a priori profonde contre une ambiance culturelle médiocre et paralysante ; le défaut de Nietzsche, ce fut de n'avoir que le sens de la grandeur en l'absence de tout discernement intellectuel. Le "Zarathoustra" est au fond le cri d'une grandeur piétinée, d'où l'authenticité poignante - la grandeur précisément - de certains passages ; certes non de tous et surtout pas de ceux qui expriment une philosophie mi-machiavélique mi-darwiniste, ou de la petite habileté littéraire.Quoi qu'il en soit, le malheur de Nietzsche - ou celui d'autres hommes géniaux, comme Napoléon - fut d'être né après la Renaissance et non avant ; ce qui marque évidemment un aspect de leur nature, car il n'y a pas de hasard.


(17) Cette philosophie aurait pu être un cri d'alarme contre le péril d'un humanitarisme aplatissant et abâtardissant, donc mortel pour le genre humain ; en fait, elle fut un combat contre des moulins à vent en même temps qu'une séduction plus périlleuse”
― Frithjof Schuon, To Have a Center

“I have grown weary of the poets, the old and the new; they all seem to me superficial and shallow seas....
Truly, their spirit itself is the peacock of peacocks and a sea of vanity!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“I love him who does not want to have too many virtues. One virtue is more virtue than two, because it is more of a noose on which his catastrophe may hang.”
― Nietzsche

“Flee, my friend, into thy solitude: I see thee stung all over by the poisonous flies. Flee thither, where a rough, strong breeze bloweth!”
― Frederick Niestzsche