What Are Your Favorite Nietzsche Quotes?

The "cause of itself" is the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far, it is a sort of rape and perversion of logic; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with just this nonsense. The desire for "freedom of the will" in the superlative metaphysical sense, which still hold sway, unfortunately, in the minds of the half educated; the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one's actions on oneself, and tubes of God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society involves nothing less than to be precisely this cause of itself and, with more than mentions audacity, to pull one self up into existence by the hair out of the swamps of nothingness.>

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One day had Zarathustra fallen asleep under a fig-tree, owing to the heat, with his arm over his face. And there came an adder and bit him in the neck, so that Zarathustra screamed with pain. When he had taken his arm from his face he looked at the serpent; and then did it recognise the eyes of Zarathustra, wriggled awkwardly, and tried to get away. "Not at all," said Zarathustra, "as yet hast thou not received my thanks! Thou hast awakened me in time; my journey is yet long." "Thy journey is short," said the adder sadly; "my poison is fatal." Zarathustra smiled. "When did ever a dragon die of a serpent's poison?"—said he. "But take thy poison back! Thou art not rich enough to present it to me." Then fell the adder again on his neck, and licked his wound.

From Zarathustra, Bite of the Adder. With special emphasis on ,"When did ever a dragon die of a serpent's poison?". I don’t know why but I think it had to do with Zarathustras boldness.

A few more:

"No, life has not disappointed me. On the contrary, I find it truer, more desirable and mysterious every year— ever since the day when the great liberator came to me: the idea that life could be an experiment of the seeker for knowledge— and not a duty, not a calamity, not trickery...“Life as a means to knowledge”— with this principle in one’s heart one can live not only boldly but even gaily, and laugh gaily, too."

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Kindle Locations 4210-4211). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

And one of my all-time favorites:

"The fancy of the contemplatives.— What distinguishes the higher human beings from the lower is that the former see and hear immeasurably more, and see and hear thoughtfully— and precisely this distinguishes human beings from animals, and the higher animals from the lower. For anyone who grows up into the heights of humanity the world becomes ever fuller; ever more fishhooks are cast in his direction to capture his interest; the number of things that stimulate him grows constantly, as does the number of different kinds of pleasure and displeasure: The higher human being always becomes at the same time happier and unhappier. But he can never shake off a delusion: He fancies that he is a spectator and listener who has been placed before the great visual and acoustic spectacle that is life; he calls his own nature contemplative and overlooks that he himself is really the poet who keeps creating this life. Of course, he is different from the actor of this drama, the so-called active type; but he is even less like a mere spectator and festive guest in front of the stage. As a poet, he certainly has vis contemplativa and the ability to look back upon his work, but at the same time also and above all vis creativa, [Contemplative power; creative power.] which the active human being lacks, whatever visual appearances and the faith of all the world may say. We who think and feel at the same time are those who really continually fashion something that had not been there before: the whole eternally growing world of valuations, colors, accents, perspectives, scales, affirmations, and negations. This poem that we have invented is continually studied by the so-called practical human beings (our actors) who learn their roles and translate everything into flesh and actuality, into the everyday. Whatever has value in our world now does not have value in itself, according to its nature —nature is always value-less, but has been given value at some time, as a present— and it was we who gave and bestowed it. Only we have created the world that concerns man! —But precisely this knowledge we lack, and when we occasionally catch it for a fleeting moment we always forget it again immediately; we fail to recognize our best power and underestimate ourselves, the contemplatives, just a little. We are neither as proud nor as happy as we might be.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Kindle Locations 4027-4036). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

And if I may, my favorite Amor Fati aphorism which was Nietzsche's New Year Resolution in 1882:

"For the new year— I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. [I am, therefore I think: I think, therefore I am. The second half of this statement is quoted from Descartes who made this formulation famous-Kaufmann note] Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought; hence I, too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year— what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer. [Nietzsche's italics]

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Kindle Locations 3762-3769). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

My favourite one is something that I think we all are guilty off:

"Today a man of knowledge might easily feel as if he were God become animal." -Beyond Good and Evil, Maxims and Interlude 101

It (causa sui) is a sort of rape and perversion of logic

"But wherever I found the living, there I heard also the speech on obedience. Whatever lives, obeys. And this is the second point: he who cannot obey himself is commanded. That is the nature of the living. (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)"

"Education proceeds in this manner throughout: it endeavors, by a series of enticements and advantages, to determine the individual to a certain mode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse and passion, rules in him and over him, in opposition to his ultimate advantage, but ” for the general good.”