Nietzsche
Sun 12.17.17
I’ve been Youtubing a little Nietzsche philosophy. I had taken to him for his statement “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” knowing little else about him except his macho Superman posture. The king of pain says you must suffer and enjoy it. Be glad you’re in misery and do not seek to escape it through mindless diversions. Tough guy! Actually, the man suffered throughout his life. He wanted companionship and spent his life alone. No woman would have him. As a young man visiting brothels he contracted syphilis, this in the nineteenth century, no medical cure and a slow deterioration and eventually madness. Cursed with such a life, he had to become strong, or be destroyed.
Below are some of his thoughts:
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.
If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
When one has not had a good father, one must create one.
When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is transitory.
It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.
Whatever is done for love always occurs beyond good and evil.
Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.
Woman was God's second mistake.
Faith: not wanting to know what is true.
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure, it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy.
Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent.
Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.
One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
Convictions are more dangerous foes of truth than lies.
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
The 'kingdom of Heaven' is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death.'
It is always consoling to think of suicide: in that way one gets through many a bad night.
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?
Egoism is the very essence of a noble soul.
He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.
The true man wants two things: danger and play. For that reason he wants woman, as the most dangerous plaything.
To be ashamed of one's immorality: that is a step on the staircase at whose end one is also ashamed of one's morality.
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.
No one lies so boldly as the man who is indignant.
In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
The word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.
Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.
Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.
For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.
When a hundred men stand together, each of them loses his mind and gets another one.
We have art in order not to die of the truth.
If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away from herself.
Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited: for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.
Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.
This is the hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver.
If there is something to pardon in everything, there is also something to condemn.
Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.
When one has finished building one's house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way - before one began.
One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly.
Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.
War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
It is the most sensual men who need to flee women and torment their bodies.
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.
Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.
The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
What do you regard as most humane? To spare someone shame.
We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.
Love matches, so called, have illusion for their father and need for their mother.
Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.
In the last analysis, even the best man is evil: in the last analysis, even the best woman is bad.
The irrationality of a thing is no argument against its existence, rather a condition of it.
Fanatics are picturesque, mankind would rather see gestures than listen to reasons.
There is in general good reason to suppose that in several respects the gods could all benefit from instruction by us human beings. We humans are - more humane.
Whoever feels predestined to see and not to believe will find all believers too noisy and pushy: he guards against them.
You say it is the good cause that hallows even war? I say unto you: it is the good war that hallows any cause.
Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
Genteel women suppose that those things do not really exist about which it is impossible to talk in polite company.
The abdomen is the reason why man does not readily take himself to be a god.