Friedrich Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil [With Biographical Introduction]
I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of Dionysius"—consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all actors, there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters—of (Location 282)
Epicurus was not a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows! (Location 287)
You desire to live "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves indifference as a power—how could you live in accordance with such indifference? (Location 297)
"living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"—how could you do differently? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? (Location 301)
you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalization of Stoicism! (Location 306)
Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature (Location 310)
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as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima. (Location 313)
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there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may display. (Location 320)
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Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." (Location 339)
One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. (Location 356)
soul-atomism. (Location 388)
who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing (Location 391)
Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is will to power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof. (Location 398)
And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a complete reductio ad absurdum, if the conception causa sui is something fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is not the work of our organs—? (Location 422)
we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of words! (Location 431)
The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, (Location 432)
a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I" wish; (Location 449)
half-educated, (Location 522)
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from the beginning, we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, imprudence, heartiness, and gaiety—in order to enjoy life! And only on this solidified, granite-like foundation of ignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will to knowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will, the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Not as its opposite, but—as its refinement! (Location 584)
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Cynicism is the only form in which base souls approach what is called honesty; and the higher man must open his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, (Location 633)
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For the indignant man, and he who perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his own teeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society), may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than the laughing and self-satisfied satyr, but in every other sense he is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and less instructive case. And no one is such a liar as the indignant man. (Location 643)
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It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotagati (Location 647)
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It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. (Location 679)
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And whoever attempts it, even with the best right, but without being obliged to do so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. (Location 680)
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There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically; (Location 691)
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One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air. (Location 701)
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In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of nuance, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. (Location 702)
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In this transition one punishes oneself by distrust of one's sentiments; one tortures one's enthusiasm with doubt, one feels even the good conscience to be a danger, as if it were the self-concealment and lassitude of a more refined uprightness; and above all, one espouses upon principle the cause against "youth."—A (Location 711)
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Throughout the longest period of human history—one calls it the prehistoric period—the value or non-value of an action was inferred from its consequences; the action in itself was not taken into consideration, any more than its origin; (Location 714)
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Let us call this period the pre-moral period of mankind; (Location 717)
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There is something ticklish in "the truth," and in the search for the truth; and if man goes about it too humanely—"il ne cherche le vrai que pour faire le bien"—I wager he finds nothing! (Location 778)
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the strength of a mind might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure—or to speak more plainly, by the extent to which it required truth attenuated, veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. (Location 818)
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Perhaps severity and craft are more favourable conditions for the development of strong, independent spirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined, yielding good-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which are prized, and rightly prized in a learned man. (Location 823)
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A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach, and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate friends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes, and equally so his regained security. (Location 842)
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Such a hidden nature, which instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible in evasion of communication, desires and insists that a mask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his friends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be opened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him there—and that it is well to be so. Every profound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, superficial interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests. (Location 844)
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One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge. (Location 850)
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Not to cleave to any person, be it even the dearest—every (Location 853)
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every person is a prison and also a recess. (Location 853)
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Not to cleave to a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous—it is even less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight. Not to cleave to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries, apparently specially reserved for us. Not to cleave to one's own liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which always flies further aloft in order always to see more under it—the danger of the flier. Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our "hospitality" for instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes a vice. (Location 854)
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One must know how to conserve oneself—the best test of independence. (Location 860)
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"My opinion is my opinion: another person has not easily a right to it"—such a philosopher of the future will say, perhaps. (Location 869)
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One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. (Location 871)
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And how could there be a "common good"! The expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of small value. (Location 872)
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In the end things must be as they are and have always been—the great things remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare. (Location 873)
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and suffering itself is looked upon by them as something which must be done away with. (Location 890)
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Eventually one must do everything oneself in order to know something; which means that one has much to do!— (Location 934)
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But a curiosity like mine is once for all the most agreeable of vices—pardon me! I mean to say that the love of truth has its reward in heaven, and already upon earth. (Location 936)
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continuous suicide of reason—a (Location 942)
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a tough, long-lived, worm-like reason, which is not to be slain at once and with a single blow. (Location 943)
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The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit, (Location 944)
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it is at the same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. There is cruelty and religious Phoenicianism in this faith, which is adapted to a tender, many-sided, and very fastidious conscience, it takes for granted that the subjection of the spirit is indescribably painful, that all the past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum, in the form of which "faith" comes to it. (Location 945)
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Modern men, with their obtuseness as regards all Christian nomenclature, have no longer the sense for the terribly superlative conception which was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, "God on the Cross". Hitherto there had never and nowhere been such boldness in inversion, nor anything at once so dreadful, questioning, and questionable as this formula: it promised a transvaluation of all ancient values— (Location 949)
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it was always not the faith, but the freedom from the faith, the half-stoical and smiling indifference to the seriousness of the faith, which made the slaves indignant at their masters and revolt against them. (Location 955)
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How is the negation of will possible? how is the saint possible?—that seems to have been the very question with which Schopenhauer made a start and became a philosopher. (Location 970)
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it is a very superior kind of man who takes such an attitude towards nature and life.—Later (Location 1011)
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The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary privation—why (Location 1021)
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63. He who is a thorough teacher takes things seriously—and even himself—only in relation to his pupils. (Location 1210)
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Love to one only is a barbarity, for it is exercised at the expense of all others. Love to God also! (Location 1220)
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It is not the strength, but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men. (Location 1229)
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He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. (Location 1231)
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Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself. (Location 1237)
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One begins to distrust very clever persons when they become embarrassed. (Location 1262)
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89. Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also. (Location 1263)
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92. Who has not, at one time or another—sacrificed himself for the sake of his good name? (Location 1269)
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The maturity of man—that means, to have reacquired the seriousness that one had as a child at play. (Location 1273)
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98. When one trains one's conscience, it kisses one while it bites. (Location 1280)
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107. A sign of strong character, when once the resolution has been taken, to shut the ear even to the best counter-arguments. Occasionally, therefore, a will to stupidity. (Location 1298)
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The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and maligns it. (Location 1302)
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121. It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn author—and that he did not learn it better. (Location 1323)
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125. When we have to change an opinion about any one, we charge heavily to his account the inconvenience he thereby causes us. (Location 1331)
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128. The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more must you allure the senses to it. (Location 1337)
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130. What a person is begins to betray itself when his talent decreases,—when he ceases to show what he can do. Talent is also an adornment; an adornment is also a concealment. (Location 1341)
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132. One is punished best for one's virtues. (Location 1347)
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133. He who cannot find the way to his ideal, lives more frivolously and shamelessly than the man without an ideal. (Location 1348)
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134. From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all evidence of truth. (Location 1350)
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141. The belly is the reason why man does not so readily take himself for a God. (Location 1364)
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146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee. (Location 1374)
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It is not enough to possess a talent: one must also have your permission to possess it (Location 1386)
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153. What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. (Location 1390)
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156. Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule. (Location 1394)
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158. Not only our reason, but also our conscience, truckles to our strongest impulse—the tyrant in us. (Location 1398)
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159. One must repay good and ill; but why just to the person who did us good or ill? (Location 1400)
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161. Poets act shamelessly towards their experiences: they exploit them. (Location 1403)
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169. To talk much about oneself may also be a means of concealing oneself. (Location 1418)
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175. One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired. (Location 1429)
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177. With regard to what "truthfulness" is, perhaps nobody has ever been sufficiently truthful. (Location 1432)
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181. It is inhuman to bless when one is being cursed. (Location 1439)
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All the philosophers, with a pedantic and ridiculous seriousness, demanded of themselves something very much higher, more pretentious, and ceremonious, when they concerned themselves with morality as a science: they wanted to give a basic to morality—and every philosopher hitherto has believed that he has given it a basis; morality itself, however, has been regarded as something "given." How far from their awkward pride was the seemingly insignificant problem—left in dust and decay—of a description of forms of morality, notwithstanding that the finest hands and senses could hardly be fine enough for it! (Location 1458)
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Kant especially, gives us to understand by his morals that "what is estimable in me, is that I know how to obey—and with you it shall not be otherwise than with me!" (Location 1491)
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systems of morals are only a sign language of the emotions. (Location 1493)
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every system of morals is a sort of tyranny against "nature" and also against "reason", (Location 1494)
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it was a master stroke of English instinct to hallow and begloom Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman unconsciously hankers for his week—and work-day again:—as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated fast, such as is also frequently found in the ancient world (although, as is appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever powerful influences and habits prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary days are appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn to hunger anew. (Location 1534)
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Here also is a hint for the explanation of the paradox, why it was precisely in the most Christian period of European history, and in general only under the pressure of Christian sentiments, that the sexual impulse sublimated into love (amour-passion). (Location 1543)
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190. There is something in the morality of Plato which does not really belong to Plato, but which only appears in his philosophy, one might say, in spite of him: namely, Socratism, for which he himself was too noble. (Location 1545)
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191. The old theological problem of "Faith" and "Knowledge," or more plainly, of instinct and reason—the question whether, in respect to the valuation of things, instinct deserves more authority than rationality, which wants to appreciate and act according to motives, according to a "Why," that is to say, in conformity to purpose and utility—it (Location 1559)
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(or as Christians call it, "Faith," or as I call it, "the herd") (Location 1574)
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192. Whoever has followed the history of a single science, finds in its development a clue to the understanding of the oldest and commonest processes of all "knowledge and cognizance": there, as here, the premature hypotheses, the fictions, the good stupid will to "belief," and the lack of distrust and patience are first developed—our senses learn late, and never learn completely, to be subtle, reliable, and cautious organs of knowledge. Our eyes find it easier on a given occasion to produce a picture already often produced, than to seize upon the divergence and novelty of an impression: the latter requires more force, more "morality." It is difficult and painful for the ear to listen to anything new; (Location 1577)
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As little as a reader nowadays reads all the single words (not to speak of syllables) of a page—he rather takes about five out of every twenty words at random, and "guesses" the probably appropriate sense to them—just as little do we see a tree correctly and completely in respect to its leaves, branches, colour, and shape; we find it so much easier to fancy the chance of a tree. (Location 1587)
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