Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Meaning of the quote
Insanity is not common in individual people, but it is very common in large groups, like political parties, countries, and time periods. This means that when many people come together, they are more likely to act in crazy or unreasonable ways.
About Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was a influential German philosopher known for his radical critiques of religion, morality, and culture. He developed groundbreaking concepts like the ‘u00dcbermensch’ and the ‘will to power’, which had a profound impact on 20th-century thought. Despite being misinterpreted by his sister, Nietzsche’s ideas continue to shape philosophical and artistic movements to this day.
More quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche
One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Women are considered deep – why? Because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man – the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
To forget one’s purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
This is what is hardest: to close the open hand because one loves.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
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.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever has witnessed another’s ideal becomes his inexorable judge and as it were his evil conscience.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The best author will be the one who is ashamed to become a writer.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The lie is a condition of life.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
God is a thought who makes crooked all that is straight.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Woman was God’s second mistake.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Idleness is the parent of psychology.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Art raises its head where creeds relax.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Fear is the mother of morality.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn’t.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Love is not consolation. It is light.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is a rollicking kindness that looks like malice.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Today I love myself as I love my god: who could charge me with a sin today? I know only sins against my god; but who knows my god?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The word “Christianity” is already a misunderstanding – in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Every man is a creative cause of what happens, a primum mobile with an original movement.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The desire to annoy no one, to harm no one, can equally well be the sign of a just as of an anxious disposition.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever despises himself nonetheless respects himself as one who despises.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Plato was a bore.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
After coming into contact with a religious man I always feel I must wash my hands.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Stupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The bad gains respect through imitation, the good loses it especially in art.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
‘Evil men have no songs.’ How is it that the Russians have songs?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Wit is the epitaph of an emotion.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are – more humane.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Without music, life would be a mistake.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Not necessity, not desire – no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything – health, food, a place to live, entertainment – they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are people who want to make men’s lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are various eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes: and as a result there are various truths, and as a result there is no truth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A subject for a great poet would be God’s boredom after the seventh day of creation.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Two great European narcotics, alcohol and Christianity.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Madness is rare in individuals – but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Some are made modest by great praise, others insolent.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When one does away with oneself one does the most estimable thing possible: one thereby almost deserves to live.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In everything one thing is impossible: rationality.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are no facts, only interpretations.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
To use the same words is not a sufficient guarantee of understanding; one must use the same words for the same genus of inward experience; ultimately one must have one’s experiences in common.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In praise there is more obtrusiveness than in blame.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
To be ashamed of one’s immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one’s morality.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The doer alone learneth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called ‘Ego’.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Art is the proper task of life.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
An artist has no home in Europe except in Paris.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The aphorism in which I am the first master among Germans, are the forms of “eternity”; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his “divine service.”
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, makes someone a friend.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
All truth is simple… is that not doubly a lie?
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A great value of antiquity lies in the fact that its writings are the only ones that modern men still read with exactness.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I love those who do not know how to live for today.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
All sciences are now under the obligation to prepare the ground for the future task of the philosopher, which is to solve the problem of value, to determine the true hierarchy of values.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What? You seek something? You wish to multiply yourself tenfold, a hundredfold? You seek followers? Seek zeros!
German philosopher (1844-1900)
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is nothing we like to communicate to others as much as the seal of secrecy together with what lies under it.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
I would believe only in a God that knows how to Dance.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There cannot be a God because if there were one, I could not believe that I was not He.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever has provoked men to rage against him has always gained a party in his favor, too.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is an innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has never yet occurred that they, too, might be admired some day.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The future influences the present just as much as the past.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Nothing has been purchased more dearly than the little bit of reason and sense of freedom which now constitutes our pride.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The world itself is the will to power – and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power – and nothing else!
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
The “kingdom of Heaven” is a condition of the heart – not something that comes “upon the earth” or “after death.”
German philosopher (1844-1900)
A friend should be a master at guessing and keeping still: you must not want to see everything.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When one has finished building one’s house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way – before one began.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When art dresses in worn-out material it is most easily recognized as art.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
In music the passions enjoy themselves.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Success has always been a great liar.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is not enough love and goodness in the world to permit giving any of it away to imaginary beings.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Let us beware of saying that death is the opposite of life. The living being is only a species of the dead, and a very rare species.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
German philosopher (1844-1900)
These people abstain, it is true: but the bitch Sensuality glares enviously out of all they do.
German philosopher (1844-1900)