Stating the Unstated

My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book. And what everyone else does not say in a book.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols
"Expeditions of an Untimely Man"
1889

Immortal Concision

Aphorisms are the forms of eternity.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Twilight of the Idols
"Expeditions of an Untimely Man" 51
1889

Dancing with Philosophers

There is no formula for how much nourishment a spirit requires. But if its taste is for independence, for wandering, perhaps for adventures to which only the swiftest are equal, then it prefers to live free on a light diet, than unfree and stuffed.

Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and strength is what a good dancer wants from their food. And I don't know what more the spirit of a philosopher could wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is their ideal, their art, and also the only kind of piety they know, their 'divine service'.

Friedrich Nietzsche 1887

Hot Issues and Cold Showers

I regard profound problems as I do a cold bath. In quickly and out quickly. That one thereby fails to get down deep enough, fails to reach the depths, is the superstition of the enemies of cold water. They speak without experience. Oh! Great cold makes one quick!

Friedrich Nietzsche
1887

Social Butterfly Skeet Shooting

I no longer write anything which does not reduce to despair every kind of person who is 'in a hurry'.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak
"Preface"
1886

Wisdom Wars

Wisdom is a woman and loves only a warrior.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"Of Reading and Writing"
1883

Laughing Lions

Courage wants to laugh. Who of you can laugh and be exalted at the same time?

Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"Of Reading and Writing"
1883

Dreams of Imprintedness

Whoever writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read. They want to be learned by heart.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
"Of Reading and Writing"
1883

The Diggers Revisited

The good individuals of every age are those who bury the old ideas in the depths of the earth and bear fruit with them, the agriculturalists of the spirit.

Friedrich Nietzsche
1882

Unselfishness' Selfish Motive 1

When they feel they are unselfish, they think there's no reason to bother with truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Daybreak 456
1881

Creating Hammers

Real philosophers reach for the future with a creative hand. And for them, everything that has ever existed becomes a means, an instrument, a hammer. Their knowing is creating.

Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil 211
1886