Friedrich Nietzsche on Friendship

"It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."

"The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends."

"Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall."

"Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm: usually because they could not walk."

"On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognizes the full import of this simile."

"The good generally displeases us when it is beyond our ken."

"Every tradition grows ever more venerable — the more remote its origin, the more confused that origin is. The reverence due to it increases from generation to generation. The tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe."

"Christianity destroyed for us the whole harvest of ancient civilization, and later it also destroyed for us the whole harvest of Mohammedan civilization. The wonderful culture of the Moors in Spain, which was fundamentally nearer to us and appealed more to our senses and tastes than that of Rome and Greece, was trampled down Why? Because it had to thank noble and manly instincts for its origin — because it said yes to life, even to the rare and refined luxuriousness of Moorish life! The crusaders later made war on something before which it would have been more fitting for them to have grovelled in the dust — a civilization beside which even that of our nineteenth century seems very poor and very "senile." Intrinsically there should be no more choice between Islam and Christianity than there is between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is already reached; nobody remains at liberty to choose here. Either a man is a Chandala or he is not.... “War to the knife with Rome! Peace and friendship with Islam!”: this was the feeling, this was the act, of that great free spirit, that genius among German emperors, Frederick II."