Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes Quotations : TRUTH AND UNTRUTH, ERROR |
To recognise untruth as a condition of Life; that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 1, The Prejudices of Philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Here and there we understand it, and laugh at the way in which precisely the best knowledge seeks most to retain us in this simplified, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, and suitably falsified world: at the way in which, whether it will or not, it loves error, because, as living itself, it loves life! Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 2, The Free Spirit, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
A thing could be true, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that one succumbed by a full knowledge of it - so that the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure - or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. Beyond Good and Evil, Chapter 2, The Free Spirit, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Truth must either attract power to its side or else side with power for otherwise it will perish again and again. Daybreak, Book 5 501-575, Friedrich Nietzsche |
How much truth can a spirit endure; how much truth can it dare? Ecce Homo, Preface, Friedrich Nietzsche |
If falsehood insists at all costs on claiming the word “truth” for its own, the real truth must be found among the despised. Ecce Homo, Why I am a Destiny, Friedrich Nietzsche |
If one is sufficiently rich for it it may even be a joy to be wrong. Ecce Homo, Why I am So Wise, Friedrich Nietzsche |
The visionary denies the truth to himself, the liar only to others. Human, All-Too-Human : Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions, 6. AGAINST VISIONARIES, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Without the errors which lie in the assumption of morality, man would have remained an animal. Human, All-Too-Human : Part One, 40. THE SUPER ANIMAL, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
The champions of truth are hardest to find, not when it is dangerous to tell it, but rather when it is boring. Human, All-Too-Human : Part One, 506. REPRESENTATIVES OF TRUTH, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
There is no pre-established harmony between the furthering of truth and the good of mankind. Human, All-Too-Human : Part One, 517. BASIC INSIGHT, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
One of the commonest mistakes is this: because someone is truthful and honest towards us, he must speak the truth. Human, All-Too-Human : Part One, 53. THE NOMINAL DEGREES OF TRUTH, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Indeed, we have not any organ at all for knowledge or for "truth": we "know" (or believe, or imagine) just as much as may be of use in the interest of the human herd, the species; and even what is here called "usefulness" is ultimately only a belief, something fanciful and perhaps precisely the most fatal stupidity by which we shall one day perish. The Gay Science : Fifth Book, 354. The Genius of the Species?, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
He who under these circumstances feels that he "is in possession of the truth” - how many possessions will he not give up in order to keep this feeling. The Gay Science : First Book, 13. The Theory of the Sense of Power, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
To be annoyed or to feel remorse because something goes wrong - that he leaves to those who act because they are commanded to do so, and expect to get a beating when their gracious master is not satisfied with the result. The Gay Science : First Book, 41. Against Remorse, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questioning - as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all. The Gay Science : First Book, 41. Against Remorse, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted to answer: "Let's try it!" The Gay Science : First Book, 51. Sense for Truth, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
But I don't wish to hear anything more of things and questions which do not permit of being tested. The Gay Science : First Book, 51. Sense for Truth, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Something now appears to you as an error which you used to love as a truth, or as a probability. You cast this opinion aside and imagine that your reason has thereby gained a victory. But perhaps that error was as necessary for you then - for the old "you" (you are always another person) - as all your current "truths" : that "error" being a skin as it were which concealed and veiled from you much that you were not yet permitted to see. The Gay Science : Fourth Book, 307. In Favour of Criticism, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
To what extent can truth endure incorporation? That is the question, that is the experiment. The Gay Science : Third Book, 110. Origin of Knowledge, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
The dominant tendency however, to treat as equal that which is merely similar - an illogical tendency for there is nothing equal - is what first created the whole basis for logic. The Gay Science : Third Book, 111. Origin of the Logical, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
To find everything deep is an inconvenient trait: it makes one constantly strain one’s eyes, so that in the end one always finds more than one wishes. The Gay Science : Third Book, 158. An Inconvenient Peculiarity, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Not when the truth is filthy, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man go unwillingly into its waters. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Chastity, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
It is more noble to declare oneself in the wrong than to maintain that you are right, especially if you are right. Only, one must be rich enough to do so. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Adder's Bite, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
Let us speak of this, you wise ones, even though it be hard. To be silent is worse; all suppressed truths become poisonous. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Self-Overcoming, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
"This - is now my way - where is yours”? Thus did I answer those who asked me "the way”. For the way - it does not exist! Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Spirit of Gravity, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
"You shall not steal! You shall not kill! Such words were once called holy; before them people bowrd their knees and heads, and removed their shoes. But I ask you: where have there ever been better thieves and killers in the world than such holy words have been? Is there not in all of life itself - robbing and killing? And when such words were called holy, was not truth itself thereby - killed? Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Old and New Law-Tables, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |
He who cannot lie, does not know what truth is. Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Higher Man, Friedrich Nietzsche Go to Quote |