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Who really said it

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago

Not sourced to Nietzsche — origin unknown Unknown earliest printing: 1957
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

It appears in none of Nietzsche’s books or notebooks. The decisive detail is linguistic: no German original has ever been found, and the German versions circulating today appear to be back-translations from the English — the opposite of what you would expect from a German philosopher. Its earliest known printing is a 1957 quotation anthology, credited to him with no documentation.

Last verified 20 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago” When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago. —Author unknown; earliest printing Rudolf Flesch, The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957). Commonly misattributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Friedrich Nietzsche. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the world of Friedrich Nietzsche — German philosopher & philologist. Theme: "When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Earliest printing
Rudolf Flesch, The Book of Unusual Quotations
Dated
1957 — credited to Nietzsche, undocumented
German original
None found; circulating German appears back-translated
Author
Unknown

When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago. Flesch anthology, 1957

The sentence as first printed in 1957. Note that this English text is the earliest form known — there is no German behind it to translate from.

Quote Investigator — the 1957-onward citation chain

How we traced it

  • No German original exists. Researchers looking for one found only German versions that appear to have been translated from the English — a strong indicator that the sentence was composed in English and later attributed backwards Quote Investigator ↗.
  • The earliest known printing is Rudolf Flesch’s The Book of Unusual Quotations (1957), crediting Nietzsche without documentation. It then passes through a 1958 newspaper, a 1962 column, the 1966 Viking Book of Aphorisms, and onward into standard reference works — every instance citation-free full chain ↗.
  • It does not appear on Wikiquote’s Nietzsche page at all — not among his sourced quotations, and not even in the disputed or misattributed lists Wikiquote ↗.

Effectively unattributable rather than reusable-with-credit. There is no known author and no known translator, so there is nobody to credit and no rights holder to clear; a sentence of this length would not attract copyright in the United States in any case. The honest way to use it is as an anonymous saying of unknown twentieth-century origin — not as Nietzsche. This is not legal advice.

Fact-check

The attribution problem

Most misattributions are hard to disprove. This one carries an unusually clean piece of negative evidence: the language itself.

No original exists the decisive test

Nietzsche wrote in German. If this were his, a German sentence would exist and be findable. None does — and the German versions in circulation look like back-translations from the English, which is what you get when an English sentence acquires a German author the finding ↗.

Not Friedrich Nietzsche no citation, ever

From the 1957 anthology onward — through newspapers, a 1966 aphorism collection, and later Oxford and Random House reference works — every printing credits him and none cites a work, section or year.

Absent entirely not even disputed

It does not appear among his sourced quotations, nor in the disputed or misattributed sections — it never acquired enough of a claim to argue about Wikiquote ↗.

Author unknown. No German original exists; the earliest known printing is a 1957 English-language anthology that credited Nietzsche without documentation full chain ↗.

Context

Why it resonates

It describes something real and rarely named: convictions you thought you had settled come back when you are too depleted to argue with them. Anyone who has lain awake at three in the morning recognises it immediately.

It also sounds like late Nietzsche — the vocabulary of conquest and attack, the single-sentence form, the interest in what exhaustion reveals. Sounding right is how a sentence acquires an author.

Nietzsche wrote in German. There is no German.

The citation chain

1957: Rudolf Flesch, The Book of Unusual Quotations — credited to Nietzsche, no source.

1958–1962: a Pennsylvania newspaper, then a syndicated columnist, repeat it.

1966: W. H. Auden and Louis Kronenberger, The Viking Book of Aphorisms.

Later: absorbed into Oxford and Random House quotation references — still with no citation.

Variant: ‘…we are assaulted by ideas we conquered long ago.’

Explore

Filed under

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

Doubt Resilience

Go further

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.

When We Are Tired, We Are Attacked By Ideas We Conquered Long Agoquoteinvestigator.com

The citation chain from 1957 onward, and the finding that no German original exists.
Friedrich Nietzsche — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

His sourced quotations, plus the disputed and misattributed lists — this line appears in none of them.

Popularly credited author

Why it gets pinned on Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

1844–1900 · German philosopher & philologist

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) wrote in aphorisms, which makes him uniquely easy to counterfeit: a single free-standing sentence about weakness, exhaustion and the return of discarded beliefs looks exactly like something from Beyond Good and Evil. He is one of the most quote-magnetized names in philosophy, and lines that merely sound Nietzschean are routinely absorbed into his corpus — this one entered it through a 1957 anthology.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Flesch, Rudolf, ed. The Book of Unusual Quotations. New York, 1957. Attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche without documentation; author unknown.

MLA (9th ed.)

Flesch, Rudolf, editor. The Book of Unusual Quotations. 1957. Author unknown.

APA (7th ed.)

Flesch, R. (Ed.). (1957). The book of unusual quotations. (Attributed without source to F. Nietzsche)

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago’?” Last verified 20 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-we-are-tired-we-are-attacked-by-ideas-we-conquered

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