Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Röcken, near Leipzig. At the age of five, he lost his father, a Protestant pastor. After excelling in classical philology studies in Bonn and Leipzig, he became a professor at the University of Basel at the age of twenty-five. During this time, he became acquainted with the work of philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and formed a friendship with composer Richard Wagner. Soon, Nietzsche would carve his own path. He resigned from his position at the university, distanced himself from Schopenhauer's theories, and ended his relationship with Wagner. Leading a wandering life in small inns in Switzerland, Italy, and southern France, he devoted himself to critiquing metaphysics, ethics, religion, and other aspects of Western culture, writing incessantly. His works include "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872), "Untimely Meditations" (1873-1876), "Human, All Too Human" (1878-1879), "The Dawn" (1881), "The Gay Science" (1882), "Beyond Good and Evil" (1886), "On the Genealogy of Morality" (1887), "Twilight of the Idols" (1888), "The Antichrist" (1888), "Ecce Homo" (1888), and the unfinished "The Will to Power" (1883-1888). Among them, his masterpiece is "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (1883-1885). Nietzsche died in 1900 at the age of fifty-six, having spent the last ten years of his life in a state of mental decline.