Friedrich Nietzsche
Saturday, 12 October 2024
How to Philosophize with a Hammer, published in 1889. Twilight of the Idols (originally titled A Psychologist's Idleness) was written whilst Nietzsche was in Sils-Maria.
We have already gone beyond whatever we have words for. In all talk there is a grain of contempt.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Expeditions of an Untimely Man 26
Nietzsche Quotes
When one gives up Christian belief one thereby deprives oneself of the right to Christian morality. For the latter is absolutely not self-evident: one must make this point clear again and again, in spite of English shallowpates.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Expeditions of an Untimely Man 5
Nietzsche Quotes
These same institutions produce quite different effects while they are still being fought for; then they really promote freedom in a powerful way. On closer inspection it is war that produces these effects, the war for liberal institutions, which, as a war, permits illiberal instincts to continue. And war educates for freedom. For what is freedom? That one has the will to self-responsibility. That one maintains the distance which separates us. That one becomes more indifferent to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That one is prepared to sacrifice human beings for one's cause, not excluding oneself.
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Nietzsche Quotes
The doctrine of equality! ... But there is no more venomous poison in existence: for it appears to be preached by justice itself, when it is actually the end of justice ... "Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" - that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Expeditions of an Untimely Man, 48
Nietzsche Quotes
Freedom means that the manly instincts which delight in war and victory dominate over other instincts, for example, over those of "pleasure." The human being who has become free - and how much more the spirit who has become free - spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamed of by shopkeepers, Christians, cows, females, Englishmen, and other democrats. The free man is a warrior.
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Nietzsche Quotes
How is freedom measured, in individuals as in nations? By the resistance which must be overcome, by the effort it costs to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where the highest resistance is constantly overcome: five steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologically if by "tyrants" are meant inexorable and dreadful instincts that provoke the maximum of authority and discipline against themselves - most beautiful type: Julius Caesar - ; this is true politically too; one need only go through history. The nations which were worth something, became worth something, never became so under liberal institutions: it was great danger that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaints us with our own resources, our virtues, our armor and weapons, our spirit - and forces us to be strong...
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Nietzsche Quotes
First principle: one must need to be strong - otherwise one will never become strong. - Those large hothouses [Treibhauser] for the strong, for the strongest kind of human being that has ever been, the aristocratic commonwealths of the type of Rome or Venice, understood freedom exactly in the sense in which I understand the word freedom: as something one has and does not have, something one wants, something one conquers...
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Nietzsche Quotes
It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book - what everyone else does not say in a whole book.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Things the Germans Lack, 51
Nietzsche Quotes
My conception of freedom. - The value of a thing sometimes does not lie in that which one attains by it, but in what one pays for it - what it costs us. I give an example. Liberal institutions cease to be liberal as soon as they are attained: later on, there are no worse and no more thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions. One knows, indeed, what their ways bring: they undermine the will to power; they level mountain and valley, and call that morality; they make men small, cowardly, and hedonistic - every time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Expeditions of an Untimely Man, 38
Nietzsche Quotes
Christianity is a metaphysics of the hangman.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). The Four Great Errors, Section 7
Nietzsche Quotes
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Arrows, 33
Nietzsche Quotes
Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren't even shallow.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Arrows, 27
Nietzsche Quotes
What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Arrows, 8
Nietzsche Quotes
What is it: is man only a blunder of God, or God only a blunder of man?
Twilight of the Idols (1888). Maxims and Arrows, 7
Nietzsche Quotes
When stepped on, the worm curls up. That is a clever thing to do. Thus it reduces its chances of being stepped on again. In the language of morality: humility.
"Maxims and Arrows," Twilight of the Idols
Nietzsche Quotes
Friedrich Nietzsche Quote of the Day
Saturday, 12 October 2024If the Christian dogmas of a revengeful God, universal sinfulness, election by divine grace and the danger of eternal damnation were true, it would be a sign of weak-mindedness and lack of character not to become a priest, apostle or hermit and, in fear and trembling, to work solely on one's own salvation; it would be senseless to lose sight of one's eternal advantage for the sake of temporal comfort. If we may assume that these things are at any rate believed true, then the everyday Christian cuts a miserable figure; he is a man who really cannot count to three, and who precisely on account of his spiritual imbecility does not deserve to be punished so harshly as Christianity promises to punish him.Human, all too Human, p. 116, RJ Hollingdale transl.
