Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes on Existentialism
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Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of 'world history,' but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.
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If you have hitherto believed that life was one of the highest value and now see yourselves disappointed, do you at once have to reduce it to the lowest possible price?
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We are, all of us, growing volcanoes that approach the hour of their eruption; but how near or distant that is, nobody knows - not even God.
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Gott ist tot! Gott bleibt tot! Und wir haben ihn getotet. Aph. 125
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We are always in our own company.
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Ihre (Predigern des Todes) Weisheit lautet: 'ein Thor, der leben bleibt, aber so sehr sind wir Thoren! Und das eben ist das Thorichtste am Leben!' -
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Independence is an issue that concerns very few people: - it is a prerogative of the strong. And even when somebody has every right to be independent, if he attempts such a thing without having to do so, he proves that he is probably not only strong, but brave to the point of madness. He enters a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers already inherent in the very act of living, not the least of which is the fact that no one with eyes will see how and where he gets lost and lonely and is torn limb from limb by some cave-Minotaur of conscience. And assuming a man like this is destroyed, it is an event so far from human comprehension that people do not feel it or feel for him: - and he cannot go back again! He cannot go back to their pity again!
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One has only seen little of life, if one hasn't also seen the hand that mercifully - kills.
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Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.
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One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while still alive.
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This is the antinomy: Insofar as we believe in morality we pass sentence on existence.