Quote collection
2.5K quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"One can promise actions, but not feelings, for the latter are involuntary. He who promises to love forever or hate forever or be forever faithful to someone is promising something that is not in his power."
"The tree that would grow to heaven must send its roots to hell."
"There's no defense against stupidity."
"He who cannot obey himself will be commanded. That is the nature of living creatures."
"So long as men praise you, you can only be sure that you are not yet on your own true path but on someone else's."
"Invisible threads are the strongest ties."
"Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood."
"The discipline of suffering, of great suffering- do you not know that only this discipline has created all enhancements of man so far? That tension of the soul in unhappiness which cultivates its strength, its shudders face to face with great ruin, its inventiveness and courage in enduring, preserving, interpreting, and exploiting suffering, and whatever has been granted to it of profundity, secret, mask, spirit, cunning, greatness- was it not granted to it through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?"
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness."
"Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river; but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it."
"You know a moment is important when it is making your mind go numb with beauty."
"Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: Great Minds are Skeptical."
"People who live in an age of corruption are witty and slanderous; they know that there are other kinds of murder than by dagger or assault; they also know that whatever is well said is believed."
"The real question is: How much truth can I stand?"
"The deeper minds of all ages have had pity for animals."
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
"I have found strength where one does not look for it: in simple, mild, and pleasant people, without the least desire to rule -- and, conversely, the desire to rule has often appeared to me a sign of inward weakness: they fear their own slave soul and shroud it in a royal cloak (in the end, they still become the slaves of their followers, their fame, etc.)"
"Just as a waterfall grows slower and more lightly suspended as it plunges down, so the great man of action tends to act with greater calmness than his tempestuous desires prior to the deed would lead one to expect."
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."
"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking."