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Who really said it

They muddy the waters to make them look deep

Written by Friedrich Nietzsche 1844–1900 · German philosopher & philologist
Verified Free to reuse

This is a genuine Nietzsche line. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Part II, “On the Poets,” 1883) Zarathustra says of poets, “they all muddy their water so that it may seem deep” (German: sie trüben alle ihr Gewässer, daß es tief scheine). The familiar one-liner “They muddy the water, to make it seem deep” is a smoothed, condensed English rendering rather than a word-for-word canonical translation.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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“They muddy the waters to make them look deep” Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part II, "On the Poets" (1883)

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Provenance

The source

Work
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra), Part II
Section
“On the Poets” (“Von den Dichtern”)
First published
1883 (German)
Translation
Thomas Common, 1909 (public domain); Walter Kaufmann, 1954

They are also not pure enough for me: they all muddle their water that it may seem deep. And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!

Thomas Common’s 1909 translation. The German original reads: “Sie sind mir auch nicht reinlich genug: sie trüben alle ihr Gewässer, daß es tief scheine.” Kaufmann (1954) renders it “they all disturb their waters so that they may seem deep.”

Thus Spake Zarathustra, “The Poets” (Common translation, full text)

How we verified this

Public domain

The German text was first published in 1883 and Thomas Common’s English translation in 1909 — both well before 1931, so both are in the public domain in the United States. (Later translations such as Kaufmann’s 1954 version remain in copyright, but the underlying line and the pre-1931 renderings are free to use.)

This reflects the original work, which is public domain. If your exact English wording comes from a specific modern translation, that translation may itself still be under copyright — check the edition you quote.

Fact-check

About the wording

The attribution to Nietzsche is correct — the thought and the source are genuinely his. What’s off is the exact wording: the version that circulates online is a condensed paraphrase, not a line from any standard published translation.

Popular internet form Paraphrase

The widely-shared “They muddy the water, to make it seem deep” does not match any canonical translation verbatim. Nietzsche’s sentence in context is longer and more pointed — Common renders it “they all muddle their water that it may seem deep” ↗.

“Waters” / “them” vs “water” / “it” Variant

Many copies swap in “waters…deep” or “make them look deep.” In Nietzsche the poets muddy their water so that it (the water, i.e. their own depth) seems deep — the target is the poets’ self-presentation, per the sourced Wikiquote passage ↗.

Bottom line: really Nietzsche, really from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) — but the crisp one-liner is a modern condensation of his actual sentence, “sie trüben alle ihr Gewässer, daß es tief scheine” ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

The image comes from Zarathustra’s attack on poets in Part II of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche — himself a poet-philosopher — accuses poets of faking profundity: stir up the water, make it cloudy, and shallow ideas can pass for deep ones. It is a self-implicating jab, since Zarathustra admits “I am of to-day and heretofore… but there is something in me that is of to-morrow.”

They all muddle their water that it may seem deep.

The passage in context

In the chapter, Zarathustra says poets “have not thought deeply enough” and so “their feeling itself has not gone down to the depths.” The muddied-water metaphor is the punchline of that complaint — obscurity mistaken for depth.

Because the line is so aphoristic, it detached from its context and became a general-purpose jab at pretentious experts, academics and jargon — usually in the smoothed form “muddy the water(s) to make it/them seem/look deep.”

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Wisdom

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Thus Spake Zarathustra — “The Poets” (full text)americanliterature.com

Thomas Common’s public-domain English translation of the chapter containing the line.
Also sprach Zarathustra — “Von den Dichtern”textlog.de

The original 1883 German text, showing “sie trüben alle ihr Gewässer, daß es tief scheine.”
Thus Spoke Zarathustra — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Sourced quotation index citing Kaufmann’s translation of the passage.
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Common) — Project Gutenberggutenberg.org

Free public-domain e-text of the Common translation for full-book context.
Thus Spake Zarathustra (Common) — Standard Ebooksstandardebooks.org

Carefully produced free edition of the public-domain Common translation.

The true author

About Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · German philosopher & philologist

Friedrich Nietzsche was a German philosopher, cultural critic and classical philologist whose work on morality, nihilism and the “will to power” reshaped modern thought. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–1885), written in a mock-biblical, aphoristic style, is his best-known book and a favourite mine for quotable lines — which is exactly why paraphrased and fabricated “Nietzsche” quotes circulate so widely.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Part II, “The Poets,” trans. Thomas Common (London: T. N. Foulis, 1909); orig. Also sprach Zarathustra, “Von den Dichtern” (Chemnitz: Schmeitzner, 1883).

MLA (9th ed.)

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Translated by Thomas Common, T. N. Foulis, 1909, pt. 2, “The Poets.”

APA (7th ed.)

Nietzsche, F. (1909). Thus spake Zarathustra (T. Common, Trans.). T. N. Foulis. (Original work published 1883)

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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘They muddy the waters to make them look deep’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/they-muddy-the-waters-to-make-them-look-deep

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