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Friedrich Nietzsche: Photographic portrait, 1882Photographic portrait, 1882Gustav Adolf Schultze; public domain · Public domain

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Friedrich Nietzsche

Life dates: 1844 AD — 1900 AD

German philosopher and cultural critic whose numbered passages question familiar judgments about morality, knowledge and everyday conduct. Read the arguments in context, with attention to their historical translation.

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▷ Play this voiceSearch these words ↗Place in time ↗lifeknowledgehappinessnaturejusticemindtruthfaith

Life and writing

Friedrich Nietzsche lived from 1844 to 1900. He taught classical philology at Basel before leaving his professorship in 1879. His philosophical writing developed through criticism of inherited assumptions about culture, morality and religion, often examining the motives behind judgments that appear self-evident.

Human, All-Too-Human appeared in 1878 and marked a turn toward short numbered passages. A complete aphorism may make an argument, stage an objection or expose a tension rather than settle a question. The archive preserves whole numbered units in historical English translations; neighbouring passages and the larger work help readers assess the claim being made.

Reading this voice

Begin with a complete numbered passage, then follow the source reference into the same edition linked below. Helen Zimmern’s 1909 Part I and Paul V. Cohn’s 1913 Part II have different translation choices. Do not treat a historical argument as a fact merely because it is memorable. Some passages contain dated social assumptions. The approximate 1872 timeline coordinate is the midpoint of 1844–1900, not the composition date of the words.

Subjects to explore

knowledgemindcharactertruth

Words to begin with

Profile sources and editorial notes

Agent-assisted editorial profile, updated 2026-10-04. A human reviewer is not recorded. Biographical context does not independently authenticate every quotation attributed to this person.

Quotations and sayings

01c. 1872 AD
The Trick of the Resigning One.—He who protests against marriage, after the manner of Catholic priests, will conceive of it in its lowest and vulgarest form. In the same way he who disavows the honour of his contemporaries will have a mean opinion of it; he can thus dispense with it and struggle against it more easily. Moreover, he who denies himself much in great matters will readily indulge himself in small things. It might be possible that he who is superior to the approbation of his contemporaries would nevertheless not deny himself the gratification of small vanities.
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02c. 1872 AD
The Years of Presumption.—The proper period of presumption in gifted people is between their twenty-sixth and thirtieth years; it is the time of early ripeness, with a large residue of sourness. On the ground of what we feel within ourselves we demand honour and humility from men who see little or nothing of it, and because this tribute is not immediately forthcoming we revenge ourselves by the look, the gesture of arrogance, and the tone of voice, which a keen ear and eye recognise in every product of those years, whether it be poetry, philosophy, or pictures and music. Older men of experience smile thereat, and think with emotion of those beautiful years in which one resents the fate of being so much and seeming so little. Later on one really seems more,—but one has lost the good belief in being much,—unless one remain for life an incorrigible fool of vanity.
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03c. 1872 AD
Deceptive and Yet Defensible.—Just as in order to pass by an abyss or to cross a deep stream on a plank we require a railing, not to hold fast by,—for it would instantly break down with us,—but to give the notion of security to the eye, so in youth we require persons who unconsciously render us the service of that railing. It is true they would not help us if we really wished to lean upon them in great danger, but they afford the tranquillising sensation of protection close to one (for instance, fathers, teachers, friends, as all three usually are).
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09c. 1872 AD
Dissatisfaction With Others and With the World.—When, as so frequently happens, we vent our dissatisfaction on others when we are really dissatisfied with ourselves, we are in fact attempting to mystify and deceive our judgment; we desire to find a motive a posteriori for this dissatisfaction, in the mistakes or deficiencies of others, and so lose sight of ourselves. Strictly religious people, who have been relentless judges of themselves, have at the same time spoken most ill of humanity generally; there has never been a saint who reserved sin for himself and virture for others, any more than a man who, according to Buddha's rule, hides his good qualities from people and only shows his bad ones.
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10c. 1872 AD
Confusion of Cause and Effect.—Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability, whereas exactly the contrary has taken place. Our thoughts and judgments are, apparently, to be taken subsequently as the causes of our nature, but as a matter of fact our nature is the cause of our so thinking and judging. And what induces us to play this almost unconscious comedy? Inertness and convenience, and to a large extent also the vain desire to be regarded as thoroughly consistent and homogeneous in nature and thought; for this wins respect and gives confidence and power.
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11c. 1872 AD
Age in Relation to Truth.—Young people love what is interesting and exceptional, indifferent whether it is truth or falsehood. Riper minds love what is interesting and extraordinary when it is truth. Matured minds, finally, love truth even in those in whom it appears plain and simple and is found tiresome by ordinary people, because they have observed that truth is in the habit of giving utterance to its highest intellectual verities with all the appearance of simplicity.
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12c. 1872 AD
Men As Bad Poets.—Just as bad poets seek a thought to fit the rhyme in the second half of the verse, so men in the second half of life, having become more scrupulous, are in the habit of seeking pursuits, positions, and conditions which suit those of their earlier life, so that outwardly all sounds well, but their life is no longer ruled and continuously determined anew by a powerful thought: in place thereof there is merely the intention of finding a rhyme.
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13c. 1872 AD
Ennui and Play.—Necessity compels us to work, with the product of which the necessity is appeased; the ever new awakening of necessity, however, accustoms us to work. But in the intervals in which necessity is appeased and asleep, as it were, we are attacked by ennui. What is this? In a word it is the habituation to work, which now makes itself felt as a new and additional necessity; it will be all the stronger the more a person has been accustomed to work, perhaps, even, the more a person has suffered from necessities. In order to escape ennui, a man either works beyond the extent of his former necessities, or he invents play, that is to say, work that is only intended to appease the general necessity for work. He who has become satiated with play, and has no new necessities impelling him to work, is sometimes attacked by the longing for a third state, which is related to play as gliding is to dancing, as dancing is to walking, a blessed, tranquil movement; it is the artists' and philosophers' vision of happiness.
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14c. 1872 AD
Lessons from Pictures.—If we look at a series of pictures of ourselves, from the time of later childhood to the time of mature manhood, we discover with pleased surprise that the man bears more resemblance to the child than to the youth: that probably, therefore, in accordance with this fact, there has been in the interval a temporary alienation of the fundamental character, over which the collected, concentrated force of the man has again become master. With this observation this other is also in accordance, namely, that all strong influences of passions, teachers, and political events, which in our youthful years draw us hither and thither, seem later on to be referred back again to a fixed standard; of course they still continue to exist and operate within us, but our fundamental sentiments and opinions have now the upper hand, and use their influence perhaps as a source of strength, but are no longer merely regulative, as was perhaps the case in our twenties. Thus even the thoughts and sentiments of the man appear more in accordance with those of his childish years,—and this objective fact expresses itself in the above-mentioned subjective fact.
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15c. 1872 AD
The Tone of Voice of Different Ages.—The tone in which youths speak, praise, blame, and versify, displeases an older person because it is too loud, and yet at the same time dull and confused like a sound in a vault, which acquires such a loud ring owing to the emptiness; for most of the thought of youths does not gush forth out of the fulness of their own nature, but is the accord and the echo of what has been thought, said, praised or blamed around them. As their sentiments, however (their inclinations and aversions), resound much more forcibly than the reasons thereof, there is heard, whenever they divulge these sentiments, the dull, clanging tone which is a sign of the absence or scarcity of reasons. The tone of riper age is rigorous, abruptly concise, moderately loud, but, like everything distinctly articulated, is heard very far off. Old age, finally, often brings a certain mildness and consideration into the tone of the voice, and as it were, sweetens it; in many cases, to be sure it also sours it.
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16c. 1872 AD
The Atavist and the Forerunner.—The man of unpleasant character, full of distrust, envious of the success of fellow-competitors and neighbours, violent and enraged at divergent opinions, shows that he belongs to an earlier grade of culture, and is, therefore, an atavism; for the way in which he behaves to people was right and suitable only for an age of club-law; he is an atavist. The man of a different character, rich in sympathy, winning friends everywhere, finding all that is growing and becoming amiable, rejoicing at the honours and successes of others and claiming no privilege of solely knowing the truth, but full of a modest distrust,—he is a forerunner who presses upward towards a higher human culture. The man of unpleasant character dates from the times when the rude basis of human intercourse had yet to be laid, the other lives on the upper floor of the edifice of culture, removed as far as possible from the howling and raging wild beast imprisoned in the cellars.
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17c. 1872 AD
Consolation For Hypochondriacs.—When a great thinker is temporarily subjected to hypochondriacal self-torture he can say to himself, by way of consolation: "It is thine own great strength on which this parasite feeds and grows; if thy strength were smaller thou wouldst have less to suffer." The statesman may say just the same thing when jealousy and vengeful feeling, or, in a word, the tone of the bellum omnium contra omnes, for which, as the representative of a nation, he must necessarily have a great capacity, occasionally intrudes into his personal relations and makes his life hard.
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18c. 1872 AD
Estranged from the Present.—There are great advantages in estranging one's self for once to a large extent from one's age, and being as it were driven back from its shores into the ocean of past views of things. Looking thence towards the coast one commands a view, perhaps for the first time, of its aggregate formation, and when one again approaches the land one has the advantage of understanding it better, on the whole, than those who have never left it.
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19c. 1872 AD
Sowing and Reaping on the Field of Personal Defects.—Men like Rousseau understand how to use their weaknesses, defects, and vices as manure for their talent. When Rousseau bewails the corruption and degeneration of society as the evil results of culture, there is a personal experience at the bottom of it, the bitterness which gives sharpness to his general condemnation and poisons the arrows with which he shoots; he unburdens himself first as an individual, and thinks of getting a remedy which, while benefiting society directly, will also benefit himself indirectly by means of society.
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20c. 1872 AD
Philosophically Minded.—We usually endeavour to acquire one attitude of mind, one set of opinions for all situations and events of life—it is mostly called being philosophically minded. But for the acquisition of knowledge it may be of greater importance not to make ourselves thus uniform, but to hearken to the low voice of the different situations in life; these bring their own opinions with them. We thus take an intelligent interest in the life and nature of many persons by not treating ourselves as rigid, persistent single individuals.
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23c. 1872 AD
Love As an Artifice.—Whoever really wishes to become acquainted with something new (whether it be a person, an event, or a book), does well to take up the matter with all possible love, and to avert his eye quickly from all that seems hostile, objectionable, and false therein,—in fact to forget such things; so that, for instance, he gives the author of a book the best start possible, and straightway, just as in a race, longs with beating heart that he may reach the goal. In this manner one penetrates to the heart of the new thing, to its moving point, and this is called becoming acquainted with it. This stage having been arrived at, the understanding afterwards makes its restrictions; the over-estimation and the temporary suspension of the critical pendulum were only artifices to lure forth the soul of the matter.
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24c. 1872 AD
Thinking Too Well and Too Ill of the World.—Whether we think too well or too ill of things, we always have the advantage of deriving therefrom a greater pleasure, for with a too good preconception we usually put more sweetness into things (experiences) than they actually contain. A too bad preconception causes a pleasant disappointment, the pleasantness that lay in the things themselves is increased by the pleasantness of the surprise. A gloomy temperament, however, will have the reverse experience in both cases.
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