Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (AUDIO: Too Many Masters) was a philosopher. He dealt in morality, (AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor) and one of his concepts involved a metaphorical abyss, that stared back at you. (PROSE: Uranus)

Nietzsche once said that "God is dead". When the Ogron empress uttered these same words after the Monk killed their Crab God, Missy sarcastically called her Friedrich Nietzsche. (AUDIO: Too Many Masters)

Evelyn Smythe thought that Aleister Crowley was, at the very best, a cut-price Nietzsche. (AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor)

Prentis Duke hated the grey void of hyperspace, as if you looked too hard into it, "it became Nietzche's abyss, grinning back at you." (PROSE: Uranus)

The Seventh Doctor noted that Nietzsche said not to gaze into the void, or something similar, and also said interesting things about fighting monsters; the Doctor found the rest of what Nietzsche said regrettable. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)

Behind the scenes

In The Dying Days, the Eighth Doctor paraphrases Nietszche's Beyond Good and Evil:

"I've gazed into the abyss already, Xznaal, and the abyss gazed into me. It fled from what it saw. Monsters who fight with me should take care." -Eighth Doctor

This is, of course, an inversion of the original quote:

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." -Friedrich Nietzsche