Self-overcoming Quotes

Your highest thought, however, ye shall have it commanded unto you by me - and it is this: man is something that is to be surpassed.

He who overcomes himself is divine. Most see their ruin before their eyes; but they go on into it.

There are no limits. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman — a rope over an abyss.

What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what there is to love in man is that he is a going-over and a going-under.

Dead are all gods: now we want the overman to live.

You yourself are your own obstacle, rise above yourself.

My humanity is a constant self-overcoming.

My worst trait is that I'm an introvert. When I've led stuff, the hardest thing for me to overcome has been my natural desire to run and hide. I'm very proud of the fact that I have been able to do that.

The path to knowledge is a forced one. In order to learn, we must be pushed. On the path of knowledge we are always fighting something, avoiding something, preparing for something; and that something is always inexplicable, greater and more powerful than us.

I teach you beyond Man (superman). Man is something that shall be surpassed. What have you done to surpass him?

It is not those who commit the least faults who are the most holy, but those who have the greatest courage, the greatest generosity, the greatest love, who make the boldest efforts to overcome themselves, and are not immediately apprehensive about tripping.

What does a philosopher demand of himself, first and last? To overcome his time in himself, to become "timeless.

God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome.

There is no greater valor nor no sterner fight. He who would be what he ought to be must stop being what he is.

We find nothing easier than being wise, patient, superior. We drip with the oil of forbearance and sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. For that very reason we ought to discipline ourselves a little; for that very reason we ought to cultivate a little emotion, a little emotional vice, from time to time. It may be hard for us; and among ourselves we may perhaps laugh at the appearance we thus present. But what of that! We no longer have any other mode of self-overcoming available to us: this is our asceticism, our penance.

Man is something that shall be overcome.... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman -- a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.

The development of our spiritual nature should concern us most. Spirituality is the highest acquisition of the soul, the divine in man; 'the supreme, crowning gift that makes him king of all created things.' It is the consciousness of victory over self and of communion with the infinite. It is spirituality alone which really gives one the best in life.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman-a rope over an abyss. A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting

Let us go on outdoing ourselves; a revolutionary man always transcends himself or otherwise he is not a revolutionary man, so we always do what we ask of ourselves or more than what we know we can do.

The hero, therefore, is the man or woman who has been able to battle past his personal and local historical limitations.

Human life is so strangely constituted that even perfected intellectual understanding combined with the richest experience is incapable of conquering innate weaknesses. Even if it thoroughly analyzes itself, psychology (and this is one of the dubious aspects of psychoanalysis) can, to be sure, recognize its flawed native characteristics, but it cannot eliminate them. Understanding (them) is not the same as overcoming (them) and, again and again, we see the wisest of human beings helpless in the fact of their small follies which everyone else observes with a smile.

We must do everything we are obliged to do; give without reckoning, practice virtue whenever opportunity offers, constantly overcome ourselves, prove our love by all the little acts of tenderness and consideration we can muster. In a word, we must produce all the good works that lie within our strength - out of love for God.

When you do well at an audition, it is the highest high you can achieve because you just beat yourself. You became whatever it was, for a minute. It's a great feeling when that happens.

I love him who laboureth and inventeth, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus seeketh he his own down-going.