Friedrich Nietzsche Quotes About Language

• The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of morality: Humility.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Humility, Curls, Chance

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (2007). “Twilight of the Idols with the Antichrist and Ecce Homo”, p.8, Wordsworth Editions

• The transition from Religion to Scientific contemplation is a violent, dangerous leap, which is not to be recommended. In order to make this transition, art is far rather to be employed to relieve the mind overburdened with emotions. Out of the illogical comes much good. It is so firmly rooted in the passions, in language, in art, in religion, and generally in everything which gives value to life. It is only the naive people who can believe that the nature of man can be changed into a purely logical one. We have yet to learn that others can suffer, and this can never be completely learned.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Art, Believe, Passion

• Crude men who feel themselves insulted tend to assess the degree of insult as high as possible, and talk about the offense in greatly exaggerated language, only so they can revel to their heart's content in the aroused feelings of hatred and revenge.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Revenge, Heart, Men

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1984). “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.55, U of Nebraska Press

• He who speaks a bit of a foreign language has more delight in it than he who speaks it well; pleasure goes along with superficial knowledge.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Knowledge, Delight, Language

  Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1984). “Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.243, U of Nebraska Press

• Indeed, what forces us at all to suppose that there is an essential opposition of 'true' and 'false'? Is it not sufficient to assume degrees of apparentness and, as it were, lighter and darker shadows and shades of appearance- different 'values', to use the language of painters?

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Shadow, Essentials, Degrees

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2009). “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”, p.236, Modern Library

• The state lies in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it says, it lies-and whatever it has, it has stolen.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Evil, Language

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2013). “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, p.38, Lulu Press, Inc

• Reality is captured in the categorical nets of Language only at the expense of fatal distortion.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Reality, Language, Distortion

• It is neither the best nor the worst things in a book that defy translation.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Language, Worst

• The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Pride, Animal

  Friedrich Nietzsche, R. J. Hollingdale (1996). “Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits”, p.16, Cambridge University Press

• So far no one had had enough courage and intelligence to reveal me to my dear Germans. My problems are new, my psychological horizon frighteningly comprehensive, my language bold and clear; there may well be no books written in German which are richer in ideas and more independent than mine.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Independent, Intelligent

  Letter to Carl Fuchs, December 14, 1887.

• This sign I give you: every people speaks its tongue of good and evil, which the neighbor does not understand. It has invented its own language of customs and rights.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Rights, People, Evil

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.104, Penguin

• 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.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Understanding, Inward, Guarantees

• Reason" in language - oh, what an old deceptive female she is! I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Female, Have Faith, Language

  Friedrich Nietzsche (1977). “The Portable Nietzsche”, p.300, Penguin

• A philosophical mythology lies concealed in language, which breaks out again at every moment, no matter how cautious we may be.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Lying, Philosophical, Break Out

• The philosopher caught in the nets of language.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Philosophical, Philosopher, Language

• On the rare occasions when our dreams succeed and achieve perfection - most dreams are bungled - the are symbolic chains of scene and images in place of a narrative poetic language; they circumscribe our experiences or expectations or situations with such poetic boldness and decisiveness that in the morning we are always amazed when we remember our dreams.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Dream, Morning, Expectations

• The spiritual activity of millennia is deposited in language.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Spiritual, Language, Activity

• The surest sign that two people no longer speak the same language is that both say ironic things to one another but that neither senses the irony.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Two, People, Ironic

• Systems of morals are only a sign-language of the emotions.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sign Language, Moral, Emotion

  Friedrich Nietzsche (2016). “Beyond Good and Evil”, p.86, Friedrich Nietzsche

• The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The 'thing in itself' (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Expression, Sides, Would Be

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

• [Heraclitus' language] dispenses with lightness and artificial decoration, foremost out of disgust for humanity and out of [his own] defiant feeling.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Feelings, Humanity, Language

• We cannot even reproduce our thoughts entirely in words.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Thoughtful, Thinking, Language

You May Also Like:

Arthur Schopenhauer

Voltaire

Immanuel Kant

Sigmund Freud

Karl Marx

Jean-Paul Sartre

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel