Professor Quotes

“The lie is a condition of life.”

“I am almost equal to a shadow.”

“My solitude doesn’t depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”

“Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth... Through words and concepts we shall never reach beyond the wall off relations, to some sort of fabulous primal ground of things.”

“You want to make him interested in you? Then pretend to be embarrassed in his presence-”

“Morality is neither rational nor absolute nor natural. World has known many moral systems, each of which advances claims universality; all moral systems are therefore particular, serving a specific purpose for their propagators or creators, and enforcing a certain regime that disciplines human beings for social life by narrowing our perspectives and limiting our horizons.”

“Under peaceful conditions a warlike man sets upon himself.”

“The charm of the Platonic mode of thought ... consisted precisely in the resistance to the obvious evidence of the senses.”

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

“Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many it is almost a vice.”

“He who laughs best today, will also laughs last.”

“Socialism is the phantastic younger brother of despotism, which it wants to inherit. Socialism wants to have the fullness of state force which before only existed in despotism. ... However, it goes further than anything in the past because it aims at the formal destruction of the individual ... who ... can be used to improve communities by an expedient organ of government.”

“Laughter means: taking a mischievous delight in someone else's uneasiness, but with a good conscience.”

“You tell me: 'Life is hard to bear.' But if it were otherwise why should ou have your pride in the morning nad your resignation in the evening?”

“In art the end does not sanctify the means: but sacred means employed here can sanctify the end.”

“One may sometimes tell a lie, but the grimace that accompanies it tells the truth.”

“As far as Germany extends it ruins culture.”

“What is wanted - whether this is admitted or not - is nothing less than a fundamental remolding, indeed weakening and abolition of the individual: one never tires of enumerating and indicating all that is evil and inimical, prodigal, costly, extravagant in the form individual existence has assumed hitherto, one hopes to manage more cheaply, more safely, more equitably, more uniformly if there exist only large bodies and their members.”

“This demand follows from an insight that I was the first to articulate: that there are no moral facts.”

“Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary.”

“Many a one cannot loosen his own fetters, but is nevertheless his friend's emancipator.”

“The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.”

“Lift up your hearts, my brothers, high, higher! And don't forget about your legs either! Lift up your legs as well, you good dancers, and better yet--stand also on your heads!”

“Sensuality often hastens the "Growth of Love" so much that the roots remain weak and are easily torn up.”

“A declaration of war on the masses by higher men is needed! ... Everything that makes soft and effeminate, that serves the end of the people or the feminine, works in favor of universal suffrage, i.e. the domination of the inferior men. But we should take reprisal and bring this whole affair to light and the bar of judgment.”