Quotes from Beyond Good and Evil

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Madness is something rare in individuals — but in groups, parties, peoples, and ages, it is the rule.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itself already brings with it; not the least of which is that no one can see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated, and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience. Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from the comprehension of men that they neither feel it, nor sympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! He cannot even go back again to the sympathy of men!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“I obviously do everything to be "hard to understand" myself”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“The text has disappeared under the interpretation.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of health; everything absolute belongs to pathology.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“The vanity of others runs counter to our taste only when it runs counter to our vanity.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Blessed are the forgetful; for they get over their stupidities, too.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“In music the passions enjoy themselves.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“In the end things must be as they are and have always been--the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Physiologists should think before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength--life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“To recognize untruth as a condition of life--that certainly means resisting accustomed value feelings in a dangerous way; and a philosophy that risks this would by that token alone place itself beyond good and evil.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Christianity gave Eros poison to drink; he did not die of it, certainly, but degenerated to Vice.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Wanderer, who are you? I watch you go on your way, without scorn, without love, with impenetrable eyes - damp and downhearted, like a plumb line that returns unsatisfied from every depth back into the light (what was it looking for down there?), with a breast that does not sigh, with lips that hide their disgust, with a hand that only grips slowly: who are you? What have you done? Take a rest here, this spot is hospitable to everyone, - relax! And whoever you may be: what would you like now? What do you find relaxing? Just name it: I'll give you whatever I have! - "Relaxing? Relaxing? How inquisitive you are! What are you saying! But please, give me - -" What? What? Just say it! - "Another mask! A second mask!" ...”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Let old ones go. Dont be a memory-monger!
Once you were young──now you are even younger.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“When we have to change our mind about a person, we hold the inconvenience he causes us very much against him.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“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.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Love of one is a piece of barbarism: for it is practised at the expense of all others. Love of God likewise.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Success has always been the greatest liar - and the "work" itself is a success; the great statesman, the conqueror, the discoverer is disguised by his creations, often beyond recognition; the "work," whether of the artist or the philosopher, invents the man who has created it, who is supposed to have create it; "great men," as they are venerated, are subsequent pieces of wretched minor fiction”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of – namely, the confession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious autobiography; and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant has always grown.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“To him who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; he guards against them.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“The consequences of our actions take hold of us, quite indifferent to our claim that meanwhile we have 'improved.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“...all that is rare is for the rare.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

“Swallow your poison, for you need it badly.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from Beyond Good and Evil

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.