The labyrinthine man never seeks the truth but always and only his Ariadne.

The line originates as a brief note Nietzsche wrote in German in his private notebooks during the period he was working on "Thus Spoke Zarathustra". It was not published in his lifetime and does not appear in the text of "Zarathustra" itself; later writers sometimes repeated it as if it did, which helped spread confusion about its location and attribution.

The remark uses the Ariadne myth as a metaphor: a person lost in complexity may claim to be pursuing objective truth, but is really driven by a personal guiding figure or ideal—something that helps them navigate, motivates them, or gives meaning—rather than truth for its own sake.

Ein labyrinthischer Mensch sucht niemals die Wahrheit, sondern immer nur seine Ariadne, — was er uns auch sagen möge.

A labyrinthine person never seeks the truth, but always only his Ariadne – whatever he may tell us.

A labyrinthine man never seeks the truth but always and only his Ariadne.