The genius of the heart, as it is possessed by that great hidden one, the tempter god and born pied piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to descend into the underworld of every soul, whose every word and every glance conveys both consideration and a wrinkle of temptation, whose mastery includes an understanding…
There is a way of asking for our reasons which makes us forget our best reasons but awakens in us a defiance of and a repugnance for reasons in general -a way of asking which makes us very stupid and a typical trick of tyrannical people! The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. by…
The strongest knowledge (that of the unfreedom of the human will) is nonetheless the poorest in successes: For it always has the strongest opponent, human vanity. Human, All Too Human by Nietzsche, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, aphorism 50 I entertain many opinions. The most durable opinion that possesses me lately…
In an exchange, the only just and honest course would be for either party to demand only so much as he considers his commodity to be worth, allowance being made for trouble in acquisition, scarcity, time spent and so forth, besides the subjective value. As soon as you make your price bear a relation…
I shall be asked why really I have narrated all these little and, according to traditional judgment, insignificant things… Answer: these little things -food, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of egoism -are beyond all comparison more serious things than anything that has been taken seriously hitherto. It is precisely here that one must…
Living in the midst of this jumble of little lanes, needs, and voices gives me a melancholy happiness: how much enjoyment, impatience, and desire, how much thirsty life and drunkenness of life comes to light every moment! And yet silence will soon ascend on all these noisy, living, life-thirsty people. How his shadow stands…
Did you ever say Yes to one joy? Oh my friends, then you said Yes to all woe as well. All things are chained and entwined together, all things are in love; If ever you wanted one moment twice, if ever you said: ‘You please me happiness, instant, moment!’ Then you wanted everything to…
You want, if possible (and no “if possible” is crazier) to abolish suffering. And us? – it looks as though we would prefer it to be heightened and made even worse than it has ever been!… The discipline of suffering, of great suffering – don’t you know that this discipline has been the sole…
A throw that you made had failed. But what of that, you dice-throwers! You have not learnedto play and mock as a man ought to play and mock.Are we not always seated at a great tablefor play and mockery? And if great things you attemptedhave turned out failures,does that mean that you yourselves are…
Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman —a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end: what can be loved in man is…
