Major Works

• The Gay Science

  - Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882. Recommended translations: The Gay Science, with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans. Walter Kaufmann, Random House, 1974. The Gay Science (The Joyful Wisdom), trans. Thomas Common, Macmillan Co., 1924.
  Excerpt: 1. Invitation Take a chance and try my fare: It will grow on you, I swear; Soon it will taste good to you. If by then you should want more, All the things I’ve done before Will inspire things quite new. 2. My Happiness Since I grew tired of the… More

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  - Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen, 1883. Recommended translation: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin, 1961.
  Excerpt: When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the lake of his home, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed,—and rising one morning… More

• Twilight of the Idols

  - Götzen-Dämmerung, oder, Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophiert, 1889. Recommended translation: Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Penguin, 1977.
  Excerpt: In every age the wisest have passed the identical judgment on life: it is worthless. . . . Everywhere and always their mouths have uttered the same sound – a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness with life, full of opposition… More

Commentary

• Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation

  - Christoph Cox, Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation, University of California Press, 1999.
  About the book: Nietzsche: Naturalism and Interpretation offers a resolution of one of the most vexing problems in Nietzsche scholarship. As perhaps the most significant predecessor of more recent attempts to formulate a postmetaphysical epistemology and… More