by Friedrich Nietzsche 

Art as conjuror of the dead.— Art also fulfils the task of preservation and even of brightening up extinguished and faded memories; when it accomplishes this task it weaves a rope round the ages and causes their spirits to return. It is, certainly, only a phantom-life that results therefrom, as out of graves, or like the return in dreams of our beloved dead, but for some moments, at least, the old sensation lives again and the heart beats to an almost forgotten time. Hence, for the sake of the general usefulness of art, the artist himself must be excused if he does not stand in the front rank of the enlightenment and progressive civilisation of humanity; all his life long he has remained a child or a youth, and has stood still at the point where he was overcome by his artistic impulse; the feelings of the first years of life, however, are acknowledged to be nearer to those of earlier times than to those of the present century. Unconsciously it becomes his mission to make mankind more childlike; this is his glory and his limitation.

- Friedrich Nietzsche, from Human, All Too Human

(via Stylo) 

Dancing Friedrich Special

Without music, life would be a mistake.

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, Or, How to Philosophize With the Hammer

- He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

- I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, also his fine art, finally also the only kind of piety he knows, his ‘divine service.’”

- And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”

- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

Those seen dancing were thought insane by those that could not hear the music.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.

And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity—through him all things fall.

Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

I learned to walk; since then have I let myself run. I learned to fly; since then I do not need pushing in order to move from a spot.

Now am I light, now do I fly; now do I see myself under myself. Now there danceth a God in me—

Thus spake Zarathustra.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Also translated as "now a God dances through me"...