He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher and classical philologist, appointed professor at Basel at twenty-four. He wrote aphoristically, in fragments, and put nearly everything his age took for granted under attack — morality, religion, the idea of truth. He spent his last eleven years in mental collapse, unable to work.
About this theme: Philosophy
Philosophy always sits awkwardly in a collection of quotations: systems do not compress into a sentence, and that is exactly what is asked of them. Kant's ethics or Nietzsche's critique of morality do not fit into a single line without loss. What survives is the phrasing — often brilliant, but lifted out of the context that gave it weight.
More by Friedrich Nietzsche
More on Philosophy
- The unexamined life is not worth living.— Socrates
- Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.— Baruch Spinoza
- The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.— Michel de Montaigne
- A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart.— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.— Blaise Pascal