1
" What then is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
2
" As a means for the preserving of the individual, the intellect unfolds its principle
powers in dissimulation, which is the means by which weaker, less robust individuals
preserve themselves-since they have been denied the chance to wage the battle for
existence with horns or with the sharp teeth of beasts of prey, This art of dissimulation
reaches its peak in man. Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the
back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding
behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself-in short, a continuous
fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity-is so much the rule and the law among
men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and
pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. They are deeply immersed in
illusions and in dream images; their eyes merely glide over the surface of things and
see "forms." Their senses nowhere lead to truth; on the contrary, they are content to
receive stimuli and, as it were, to engage in a groping game on the backs of things. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
5
" Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
6
" In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of 'world history' — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.
One might invent such a fable and still not have illustrated sufficiently how wretched, how shadowy and flighty, how aimless and arbitrary, the human intellect appears in nature. There have been eternities when it did not exist; and when it is done for again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that would lead beyond human life. It is human, rather, and only its owner and producer gives it such importance, as if the world pivoted around it. But if we could communicate with the mosquito, then we would learn that he floats through the air with the same self-importance, feeling within itself the flying center of the world. There is nothing in nature so despicable or insignificant that it cannot immediately be blown up like a bag by a slight breath of this power of knowledge; and just as every porter wants an admirer, the proudest human being, the philosopher, thinks that he sees on the eyes of the universe telescopically focused from all sides on his actions and thoughts. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
8
" Deception, flattering, lying, deluding, talking behind the back, putting up a false front, living in borrowed splendor, wearing a mask, hiding behind convention, playing a role for others and for oneself – in short, a continuous fluttering around the solitary flame of vanity – is so much the rule and the law among men that there is almost nothing which is less comprehensible than how an honest and pure drive for truth could have arisen among them. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
12
" Whereas the man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds thereby in warding off misfortune, is unable to compel the abstractions themselves to yield him happiness, and strives merely to be as free as possible of pain, the man of intuition, standing in the midst of a culture, reaps directly from his intuitions not just protection from harm but also a constant stream of brightness, a lightening of the spirit, redemption, and constant stream of brightness, a lightening of the spirit, redemption, and release. Of course when he suffers, he suffers more severely; indeed he suffers more frequently because he does not know how to learn from experience and keeps on falling into the very same trap time after time. When he is suffering he is just as unreasonable as he is when he is happy, he shouts out loudly and knows no solace. How differently the same misfortune is endured by the stoic who has learned fro experience and who governs himself by means of concepts! This man, who otherwise seeks only honesty, truth, freedom from illusions, and protection from the onslaughts of things which might distract him, now performs, in the midst of misfortune, a masterpiece of pretence, just as the other did in the midst of happiness: he does not wear a twitching, mobile, human face, but rather a mask, as it were, with its features in dignified equilibrium; he does not shut, nor does he even change his tone of voice. If a veritable storm-cloud empties itself on his head, he wraps himself in his cloak and slowly walks away from under it. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
13
" ¡Qué sabe el hombre realmente de sí mismo! ¿Y podría percibirse una vez íntegramente tal cual es, como expuesto en una vitrina iluminada? ¿Acaso no le oculta la naturaleza la mayor parte de las cosas, aun acerca de su cuerpo, para retenerlo fuera de los repliegues de sus entrañas, del rápido torrente de su sangre, de las trepidaciones complejas de sus fibras, encerrado en una conciencia orgullosa y quimérica? La naturaleza arrojó la llave: y desdichada la curiosidad fatal que quisiera atisbar por el ojo de la cerradura bien lejos fuera de la cámara de la conciencia, y bajo ella, y presintiera, entonces, que es sobre lo despiadado, lo ávido, insaciable y asesino, que reposa el hombre en la indiferencia de su no saber y como pendiendo de sueños sobre la espalda de un tigre. ¡Dónde hallar, entonces, en esta constelación, el instinto de verdad! "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
14
" If each us had a different kind of sense perception — if we could only perceive things now as a bird, now as a worm, now as a plant, or if one of us saw a stimulus as red, another as blue, while a third even heard the same stimulus as a sound — then no one would speak of such a regularity of nature, rather, nature would be grasped only as a creation which is subjective in the highest degree. After all, what is a law of nature as such for us? We are not acquainted with it in itself, but only with its effects, which means in its relation to other laws of nature — which, in turn, are known to us only as sums of relations. Therefore all these relations always refer again to others and are thoroughly incomprehensible to us in their essence. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
18
" Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries — a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world. "
― Friedrich Nietzsche , On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
