To-day my hand knows the trick, I now have the knack of reversing perspectives: the first reason perhaps why a [Pg 12] Transvaluation of all Values has been possible to me alone.
For, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I am also the reverse of such a creature. Among other things my proof of this is, that I always instinctively select the proper remedy when my spiritual or bodily health is low; whereas the decadent, as such, invariably chooses those remedies which are bad for him. As a whole I was sound, but in certain details I was a decadent. That energy with which I sentenced myself to absolute solitude, and to a severance from all those conditions in life to which I had grown accustomed; my discipline of myself, and my refusal to allow myself to be pampered, to be tended hand and foot, and to be doctored—all this betrays the absolute certainty of my instincts respecting what at that time was most needful to me.
I placed myself in my own hands, I restored myself to health: the first condition of success in such an undertaking, as every physiologist will admit, is that at bottom a man should be sound. An intrinsically morbid nature cannot become healthy. On the other hand, to an intrinsically sound nature, illness may even constitute a powerful stimulus to life, to a surplus of life. It is in this light that I now regard the long period of illness that I endured: it seemed as if I had discovered life afresh, my own self included.
I tasted all good things and even trifles in a way in which it was not easy for others to taste them—out of my Will to Health and to Life I made my [Pg 13] philosophy For this should be thoroughly understood; it was during those years in which my vitality reached its lowest point that I ceased from being a pessimist: the instinct of self-recovery forbade my holding to a philosophy of poverty and desperation. Now, by what signs are Nature's lucky strokes recognised among men?
They are recognised by the fact that any such lucky stroke gladdens our senses; that he is carved from one integral block, which is hard, sweet, and fragrant as well.
He enjoys that only which is good for him; his pleasure, his desire, ceases when the limits of that which is good for him are overstepped. He divines remedies for injuries; he knows how to turn serious accidents to his own advantage; that which does not kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively gathers his material from all he sees, hears, and experiences.
He is a selective principle; he rejects much. He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with natural scenery; he honours the things he chooses, the things he acknowledges, the things he trusts. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, with that tardiness which long caution and deliberate pride have bred in him—he tests the approaching stimulus; he would not dream of meeting it half-way.
He believes neither in "ill-luck" nor "guilt"; he can digest himself and others; he knows how to forget—he is strong enough to make everything turn to his own advantage. Lo then! I am the very reverse of a decadent, for he whom I have just described is none other than myself. This double thread of experiences, this means of access to two worlds that seem so far asunder, finds in every detail its counterpart in my own nature—I am my own complement: I have a "second" sight, as well as a first.
And perhaps I also have a third sight. By the very nature of my origin I was allowed an outlook beyond all merely local, merely national and limited horizons; it required no effort on my part to be a "good European.
Be this as it may, my ancestors were Polish noblemen: it is owing to them that I have so much race instinct in my blood—who knows? But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is at any rate something very German; as is also my paternal grandmother, Erdmuthe Krause. The latter spent the whole of her youth in good old Weimar, not without coming into contact with Goethe's circle. It is not unlikely that her mother, my great grandmother, is mentioned in young Goethe's diary under the name of "Muthgen.
In , the year of the great war, when Napoleon with his general staff entered Eilenburg on the 10th of October, she gave birth to a son. As a daughter of Saxony she was a great admirer of Napoleon, and maybe I am so still. My father, born in , died in As I was born on the 15 th of October, the birthday of the king above mentioned, I naturally received the Hohenzollern names of Frederick William.
There was at all events one advantage in the choice of this day: my birthday throughout the whole of my childhood was a day of public rejoicing. I regard it as a great privilege to have had such a father: it even seems to me that this embraces all that I can claim in the matter of privileges—life, the great yea to life, excepted. What I owe to him above all is this, that I do not need any special intention, but [Pg 16] merely a little patience, in order involuntarily to enter a world of higher and more delicate things.
There I am at home, there alone does my inmost passion become free. The fact that I had to pay for this privilege almost with my life, certainly does not make it a bad bargain.
In order to understand even a little of my Zarathustra, perhaps a man must be situated and constituted very much as I am myself—with one foot beyond the realm of the living. I have never understood the art of arousing ill-feeling against myself,—this is also something for which I have to thank my incomparable father,—even when it seemed to me highly desirable to do so.
However un-Christian it may seem, I do not even bear any ill-feeling towards myself. Turn my life about as you may, you will find but seldom—perhaps indeed only once—any trace of some one's having shown me ill-will. You might perhaps discover, however, too many traces of goodwill My experiences even with those on whom every other man has burnt his fingers, speak without exception in their favour; I tame every bear, I can make even clowns behave decently.
The unexpected has always found me equal to it; I must be unprepared in order to keep my self-command. Whatever the instrument was, even if it were as out of tune as the instrument [Pg 17] "man" can possibly be,—it was only when I was ill that I could not succeed in making it express something that was worth hearing.
And how often have I not been told by the "instruments" themselves, that they had never before heard their voices express such beautiful things This was said to me most delightfully perhaps by that young fellow Heinrich von Stein, who died at such an unpardonably early age, and who, after having considerately asked leave to do so, once appeared in Sils-Maria for a three days' sojourn, telling everybody there that it was not for the Engadine that he had come.
Again and again I said to him that this was all owing to the splendid air; everybody felt the same,—one could not stand feet above Bayreuth for nothing,—but he would not believe me Be this as it may, if I have been the victim of many a small or even great offence, it was not "will," and least of all ill-will that actuated the offenders; but rather, as I have already suggested, it was goodwill, the cause of no small amount of mischief in f my life, about which I had to complain.
My experience gave me a right to feel suspicious in regard [Pg 18] to all so-called "unselfish" instincts, in regard to the whole of "neighbourly love" which is ever ready and waiting with deeds or with advice. To me it seems that these instincts are a sign of weakness, they are an example of the inability to withstand a stimulus—it is only among decadents that this pity is called a virtue. What I reproach the pitiful with is, that they are too ready to forget shame, reverence, and the delicacy of feeling which knows how to keep at a distance; they do not remember that this gushing pity stinks of the mob, and that it is next of kin to bad manners—that pitiful hands may be thrust with results fatally destructive into a great destiny, into a lonely and wounded retirement, and into the privileges with which great guilt endows one.
The overcoming of pity I reckon among the noble virtues; In the "Temptation of Zarathustra" I have imagined a case, in which a great cry of distress reaches his ears, in which pity swoops down upon him like a last sin, and would make him break faith with himself. To remain one's own master in such circumstances, to keep the sublimity of one's mission pure in such cases,—pure from the many ignoble and more short-sighted impulses which come into play in so-called unselfish actions,—this is the rub, the last test perhaps which a Zarathustra has to undergo—the actual proof of his power.
In yet another respect I am no more than my father over again, and as it were the continuation of his life after an all-too-early death. Like every [Pg 19] man who has never been able to meet his equal, and unto whom the concept "retaliation" is just as incomprehensible as the notion of "equal rights," I have forbidden myself the use of any sort of measure of security or protection—and also, of course, of defence and "justification"—in all cases in which I have been made the victim either of trifling or even very great foolishness.
My form of retaliation consists in this: as soon as possible to set a piece of cleverness at the heels of an act of stupidity; by this means perhaps it may still be possible to overtake it. To speak in a parable: I dispatch a pot of jam in order to get rid of a bitter experience Let anybody only give me offence, I shall "retaliate," he can be quite sure of that: before long I discover an opportunity of expressing my thanks to the "offender" among other things even for the offence —or of asking him for something, which can be more courteous even than giving.
It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter, is more good-natured, more straightforward, than silence. Those—who keep silent are almost always lacking in subtlety and refinement of heart; silence is an objection, to swallow a grievance must necessarily produce a bad temper—it even upsets the stomach. All silent people are dyspeptic. You perceive that I should not like to see rudeness undervalued; it is by far the most humane form of contradiction, and, in the midst of modern effeminacy, it is one of our first virtues; If one is sufficiently rich for it, it may even be a joy to be wrong.
If a god were to descend to this earth, he would have to [Pg 20] do nothing but wrong—to take guilt not punishment, on one's shoulders, is the first proof of divinity. Freedom from resentment and the understanding of the nature of resentment—who knows how very much after all I am indebted to my long illness for these two things?
The problem is not exactly simple: a man must have experienced both through his strength and through his weakness, If illness and weakness are to be charged with anything at all, it is with the fact that when they prevail, the very instinct of recovery, which is the instinct of defence and of war in man, becomes decayed.
He knows not how to get rid of anything, how to come to terms with anything, and how to cast anything behind him. Everything wounds him. People and things draw importunately near, all experiences strike deep, memory is a gathering wound. To be ill is a sort of resentment in itself. Against this resentment the invalid has only one great remedy—I call it Russian fatalism, that fatalism which is free from revolt, and with which the Russian soldier, to whom a campaign proves unbearable, ultimately lays himself down in the snow.
To accept nothing more, to undertake nothing more, to absorb nothing more—to cease entirely from reacting The tremendous sagacity of this fatalism, which does not always imply merely the courage for death, but which in the most dangerous cases may actually constitute a self-preservative measure, amounts to a reduction of activity in the vital [Pg 21] functions, the slackening down of which is like a sort of will to hibernate.
A few steps farther in this direction we find the fakir, who will sleep for weeks in a tomb Owing to the fact that one would be used up too quickly if one reacted, one no longer reacts at all: this is the principle. And nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. Mortification, morbid susceptibility, the inability to wreak revenge, the desire and thirst for revenge, the concoction of every sort of poison—this is surely the most injurious manner of reacting which could possibly be conceived by exhausted men.
It involves a rapid wasting away of nervous energy, an abnormal increase of detrimental secretions, as, for instance, that of bile into the stomach. To the sick man resentment ought to be more strictly forbidden than anything else—it is his special danger: unfortunately, however, it is also his most natural propensity.
This was fully grasped by that profound physiologist Buddha. His "religion," which it would be better to call a system of hygiene, in order to avoid confounding it with a creed so wretched as Christianity, depended for its effect upon the triumph over resentment: to make the soul free therefrom was considered the first step towards recovery.
Resentment born of weakness is not more deleterious to anybody than it is to the weak man himself [Pg 22] —conversely, in the case of that man whose nature is fundamentally a rich one, resentment is a superfluous feeling, a feeling to remain master of which is almost a proof of riches. Those of my readers who know the earnestness-with which my philosophy wages war against the feelings of revenge and rancour, even to the extent of attacking the doctrine of "free will" my conflict with Christianity is only a particular instance of it , will understand why I wish to focus attention upon my own personal attitude and the certainty of my practical instincts precisely in this matter.
In my moments of decadence I forbade myself the indulgence of the above feelings, because they were harmful; as soon as my life recovered enough riches and pride, however, I regarded them again as forbidden, but this time because they were beneath me.
That "Russian fatalism" of which I have spoken manifested itself in me in such a way that for years I held tenaciously to almost insufferable conditions, places, habitations, and companions, once chance had placed them on my path—it was better than changing them, than feeling that they could be changed, than revolting against them He who stirred me from this fatalism, he who violently tried to shake me into consciousness, seemed to me then a mortal enemy—in point of fact, there was danger of death each time this was done.
To regard one's self as a destiny, not to wish one's self "different"—this, in such circumstances, is sagacity, itself.
War, on the other hand, is something different. At heart I am a warrior. Attacking belongs to my instincts. To be able to be an enemy, to be an enemy—maybe these things presuppose a strong nature; in any case all strong natures involve these things. Such natures need resistance, consequently they go in search of obstacles: the pathos of aggression belongs of necessity to strength as much as the feelings of revenge and of rancour belong to weakness.
Woman, for instance, is revengeful; her weakness involves this passion, just as it involves her susceptibility in the presence of other people's suffering. The strength of the aggressor can be measured by the opposition which he needs; every increase of growth betrays itself by a seeking out of more formidable opponents—or problems: for a philosopher who is combative challenges even problems to a duel.
The task is not to overcome opponents in general, but only those opponents against whom one has to summon all one's strength, one's skill, and one's swordsmanship—in fact, opponents who are one's equals To be one's enemy's equal—this is the first condition of an honourable duel.
Where one despises, one cannot wage war. My war tactics can be reduced to four principles A First, I attack only things that are triumphant—if necessary I wait until they become triumphant. Secondly, I attack only those things against which I find no [Pg 24] allies, against which I stand alone—against which I compromise nobody but myself I have not yet taken one single step before the public eye, which did not compromise me: that is my criterion of a proper mode of action.
Thirdly, I never make personal attacks—I use a personality merely as a magnifying-glass, by means of which I render a general, but elusive and scarcely noticeable evil, more apparent. In this way I attacked David Strauss, or rather the success given to a senile book by the cultured classes of Germany—by this means I caught German culture red-handed.
In this way I attacked Wagner, or rather the falsity or mongrel instincts of our "culture" which confounds the super-refined with the strong, and the effete with the great.
On the contrary, attacking is to me a proof of goodwill and, in certain circumstances, of gratitude. By means of it, I do honour to a thing, I distinguish a thing; whether I associate my name with that of an institution or a person, by being against or for either, is all the same to me. If I wage war against Christianity, I feel justified in doing so, because in that quarter I have met with no fatal experiences and difficulties—the most earnest Christians have always been kindly disposed to me.
I, personally, the most essential opponent of Christianity, am far from holding the individual responsible for what is the fatality of long ages. May I be allowed to hazard a suggestion concerning one last trait in my character, which in my intercourse with other men has led me into some difficulties?
I am gifted with a sense of cleanliness the keenness of which is phenomenal; so much so, that I can ascertain physiologically—that is to say, smell—the proximity, nay, the inmost core, the "entrails" of every human soul If my observation has been correct, such people, whom my sense of cleanliness rejects, also become conscious, on their part, of the cautiousness to which my loathing prompts me: and this does not make them any more fragrant In keeping with a custom which I have long observed,—pure habits and honesty towards myself are among the first conditions of my existence, I would die in unclean surroundings,—I swim, bathe, and splash about, as it were, incessantly in water, in any kind of perfectly transparent and shining element.
That is why my relations with my fellows try my patience to no small extent; my humanity does not consist in the fact that I understand the feelings of my fellows, but that I can endure to understand My humanity is a perpetual process of self-mastery.
But I need solitude—that is to say, recovery, [Pg 26] return to myself, the breathing of free, crisp, bracing air The whole of my Zarathustra is a dithyramb in honour of solitude, or, if I have been understood, in honour of purity.
Thank Heaven, it is not in honour of "pure foolery"! The loathing of mankind, of the rabble, was always my greatest danger Would you hearken to the words spoken by Zarathustra concerning deliverance from loathing? How did I deliver myself from loathing? Who hath made mine eye younger? How did I soar to the height, where there are no more rabble sitting about the well?
Verily to the loftiest heights did I need to fly, to find once more the spring of joyfulness. Up here, on the loftiest height, the spring of joyfulness gusheth forth for me. And there is a life at the well of which no rabble can drink with you. And ofttimes dost thou empty the pitcher again in trying to fill it. Far too eagerly doth my heart jump to meet thee.
Past is the wickedness of my snowflakes in June! Summer have I become entirely, and summer noontide! How could it thus become muddy! It will laugh back at you with its purity.
They would think they ate fire and would burn their mouths! To their bodies our happiness would seem an ice-cavern, and to their spirits also! See my note on p. Why do I know more things than other people? Why, in fact, am I so clever? I have never pondered over questions that are not questions. I have never squandered my strength. Of actual religious difficulties, for instance, I have no experience. I have never known what it is to feel "sinful. Once it was done I should hate to leave an action of mine in the lurch; I should prefer completely to omit the evil outcome, the consequences, from the problem concerning the value of an action.
In the face of evil consequences one is too ready to lose the proper standpoint from which one's deed ought to be considered. A prick of conscience strikes me as a sort of "evil eye. I am too inquisitive, too incredulous, too high spirited, to be satisfied with such a palpably clumsy solution of things.
God is a too palpably clumsy solution of things; a solution which shows a lack of delicacy towards us thinkers—at bottom He is really no more than a coarse and rude prohibition of us: ye shall not think!
I am much more interested in another question,—a question upon which the "salvation of humanity" depends to a far greater degree than it does upon any piece of theological curiosity: I refer to nutrition. Only the absolute worth- 1 lessness of German culture—its "idealism"—can to some extent explain how it was that precisely in this matter I was so backward that my ignorance was almost saintly.
This "culture," which from first to last teaches one to lose sight of actual things and to hunt after thoroughly problematic and so-called ideal aims, as, for instance, "classical culture"—as if it were not hopeless from the start to try to unite "classical" and "German" in one concept.
It is even a little comical—try and imagine a "classically cultured" citizen of Leipzig! It was through the cooking in vogue at Leipzig, for instance, together with my first study of Schopenhauer , that I earnestly renounced my "Will to Live. It is said that in the year changes were introduced into this department. But as to German cookery in general—what has it not got on its conscience!
Soup before the meal still called alla tedesca in the Venetian cookery books of the sixteenth century ; meat boiled to shreds, vegetables cooked with fat and flour; the degeneration of pastries into paper-weights! And, if you add thereto the absolutely bestial post-prandial drinking habits of the ancients, and not alone of the ancient Germans, you will understand where German intellect took its origin—that is to say, in sadly disordered intestines German intellect is indigestion; it can assimilate nothing.
But even English diet, which in comparison with German, and indeed with French alimentation, seems to me to constitute a "return to Nature,"—that is to say, to cannibalism,—is profoundly opposed to my own instincts. It seems to me to give the intellect heavy feet, in fact, Englishwomen's feet The best cooking is that of Piedmont. Alcoholic drinks do not agree with me; a single glass of wine or beer a day is amply sufficient to turn life into a valley of tears [Pg 31] for me;—in Munich live my antipodes.
Although I admit that this knowledge came to me somewhat late, it already formed part of my experience even as a child. As a boy I believed that the drinking of wine and the smoking of tobacco were at first but the vanities of youths, and later merely bad habits.
Maybe the poor wine of Naumburg was partly responsible for this poor opinion of wine in general. In order to believe that wine was exhilarating, I should have had to be a Christian—in other words, I should have had to believe in what, to my mind, is an absurdity.
Strange to say, whereas small quantities of alcohol, taken with plenty of water, succeed in making me feel out of sorts, large quantities turn me almost into a rollicking tar. Even as a boy I showed my bravado in this respect. To compose a long Latin essay in one night, to revise and recopy it, to aspire with my pen to emulating the exactitude and the terseness of my model, Sallust, and to pour a few very strong grogs over it all—this mode of procedure, while I was a pupil at the venerable old school of Pforta, was not in the least out of keeping with my physiology, nor perhaps with that of Sallust, however much it may have been alien to dignified Pforta.
Later on, towards the middle of my life, I grew more and more opposed to alcoholic drinks: I, an opponent of vegetarianism, who have experienced what vegetarianism is,—just as Wagner, who converted me back to meat, experienced it,—cannot with sufficient earnestness advise all more spiritual natures to abstain absolutely from alcohol.
Water answers the purpose I have a predilection in favour of [Pg 32] those places where in all directions one has opportunities of drinking from running brooks Nice, Turin, Sils. In vino Veritas : it seems that here once more I am at variance with the rest of the world about the concept "Truth"—with me spirit moves on the face of the waters Here are a few more indications as to my morality.
A heavy meal is digested more easily than an inadequate one. The first principle of a good digestion is that the stomach should become active as a whole.
A man ought, therefore, to know the size of his stomach. Nothing should be eaten between meals, coffee should be given up—coffee makes one gloomy. Tea is beneficial only in the morning. It should be taken in small quantities, but very strong. It may be very harmful, and indispose you for the whole day, if it be taken the least bit too weak.
Everybody has his own standard in this matter, often between the narrowest and most delicate limits. In an enervating climate tea is not a good beverage with which to start the day: an hour before taking it an excellent thing is to drink a cup of thick cocoa, feed from oil. Remain seated as little as possible, put no trust in any thought that is not born in the open, to the accompaniment of free bodily motion—nor in one in which even the muscles do not celebrate a feast.
All prejudices take their origin in the intestines. A sedentary life, as I have already said elsewhere, is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. To the question of nutrition, that of locality and climate is next of kin. Nobody is so constituted as to be able to live everywhere and anywhere; and he who has great duties to perform, which lay claim to all his strength, has, in this respect, a very limited choice.
The influence of climate upon the bodily functions, affecting their acceleration or retardation, extends so far, that a blunder in the choice of locality and climate is able not only to alienate a man from his actual duty, but also to withhold it from him altogether, so that he never even comes face to face with it.
Animal vigour never acquires enough strength in him in order to reach that pitch of artistic freedom which makes his own soul whisper to him: I, alone, can do that Ever so slight a tendency to laziness in the intestines, once it has become a habit, is quite sufficient to make something mediocre, something "German" out of a genius; the climate of Germany, alone, is enough to discourage the strongest and most heroically disposed intestines.
The tempo of the body's functions is closely bound up with the agility or the clumsiness of the spirit's feet; spirit itself is indeed only a form of these organic functions.
Let anybody make a list of the places in which men of great intellect have been found, and are still found; where wit, subtlety, and malice constitute happiness; where genius is almost necessarily at home: all of them rejoice in exceptionally dry air. Paris, Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, Athens—these names prove something, namely: [Pg 34] that genius is conditioned by dry air, by a pure sky—that is to say, by rapid organic functions, by the constant and ever-present possibility of procuring for one's self great and even enormous quantities of strength.
I have a certain case in mind in which a man of remarkable intellect and independent spirit became a narrow, craven specialist and a grumpy old crank, simply owing to a lack of subtlety in his instinct for climate. And I myself might have been an example of the same thing, if illness had not compelled me to reason, and to reflect upon reason realistically.
Now that I have learnt through long practice to read the effects of climatic and meteorological influences, from my own body, as though from a very delicate and reliable instrument, and that I am able to calculate the change in degrees of atmospheric moisture by means of physiological observations upon myself, even on so short a journey as that from Turin to Milan; I think with horror of the ghastly fact that my whole life, until the last ten years,—the most perilous years,—has always been spent in the wrong, and what to me ought to have been the most forbidden, places.
If I cannot recall one single happy reminiscence of my childhood and youth, it is nonsense to suppose that so-called "moral" causes could account for this—as, for instance, the incontestable fact that I lacked companions that could have satisfied me; for this fact is the same to-day as it ever was, and it does not prevent me from being cheerful and brave. But it was ignorance [Pg 35] in physiological matters—that confounded "Idealism"—that was the real curse of my life.
This was the superfluous and foolish element in my existence; something from which nothing could spring, and for which there can be no settlement and no compensation.
As the outcome of this "Idealism" I regard all the blunders, the great aberrations of instinct, and the "modest specialisations" which drew me aside from the task of my life; as, for instance, the fact that I became a philologist—why not at least a medical man or anything else which might have opened my eyes? I lacked all subtlety in egoism, all the fostering care of an imperative instinct; I was in a state in which one is ready to regard one's self as anybody's equal, a state of "disinterestedness," a forgetting of one's distance from others—something, in short, for which I can never forgive myself.
When I had well-nigh reached the end of my tether, simply because I had almost reached my end, I began to reflect upon the fundamental absurdity of my life—"Idealism. After the choice of nutrition, the choice of climate and locality, the third matter concerning which one [Pg 36] must not on any account make a blunder, is the choice of the manner in which one recuperates one's strength.
Here, again, according to the extent to which a spirit is sui generis, the limits of that which he can allow himself—in other words, the limits of that which is beneficial to him—become more and more confined. As far as I in particular am concerned, reading in general belongs to my means of recuperation; consequently it belongs to that which rids me of myself, to that which enables me to wander in strange sciences and strange souls—to that, in fact, about which I am no longer in earnest.
Indeed, it is while reading that I recover from my earnestness. During the time that I am deeply absorbed in my work, no books are found within my reach; it would never occur to me to allow any one to speak or even to think in my presence.
For that is what reading would mean Has any one ever actually noticed, that, during the period of profound tension to which the state of pregnancy condemns not only the mind, but also, at bottom, the whole organism, accident and every kind of external stimulus acts too acutely and strikes too deep? Accident and external stimuli must, as far as possible, be avoided: a sort of walling-of-one's-self-in is one of the primary instinctive precautions of spiritual pregnancy.
Shall I allow a strange thought to steal secretly over the wall? The periods of work and fruit-fulness are followed by periods of recuperation: come hither, ye delightful, intellectual, intelligent books! Shall I read German books?
I must go back six months to catch myself with a book in [Pg 37] my hand. What was it? An excellent study by Victor Brochard upon the Greek sceptics, in which my Laertiana [1] was used to advantage. The sceptics! Otherwise I almost always take refuge in the same books: altogether their number is small; they are books which are precisely my proper fare. It is not perhaps in my nature to read much, and of all sorts: a library makes me ill. Neither is it my nature to love much or many kinds of things.
It is to a small number of old French authors, that I always return again and again; I believe only in French culture, and regard everything else in Europe which calls itself "culture" as a misunderstanding.
The law of mutual relation. Writing must be mimicry. The richness of life reveals itself through a richness of gestures. One must learn to feel everything — the length and retarding of sentences, interpunctuations, the choice of words, the pausing, the sequence of arguments — like gestures.
Be careful with periods! Only those people who also have long duration of breath while speaking are entitled to periods. With most people, the period is a matter of affectation. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Okay, so he's wise. And clever. And writes good books. Guess what else he is? A pompous ass. View 2 comments. Sep 14, Timothy Malone rated it it was amazing. Wow, these reviews are incredibly depressing.
First off, Nietzsche often wrote in a very ironic and grandiose style for the sake of hyperbole. He made outlandish statements often and rarely meant to be taken literally.
That said, some of his eccentricity was very genuine - he was certainly no fan of German culture and did have a very very high opinion of himself. He also seemed to be somewhat deficient in social skills, even as a child he was described as highly intelligent but very anti-social Wow, these reviews are incredibly depressing.
He also seemed to be somewhat deficient in social skills, even as a child he was described as highly intelligent but very anti-social and awkward. So you have to understand - this man was an incredible genius, his IQ is estimated to be over , he had an endless stream of bizarre, revolutionary, controversial, and at times even conflicting ideas screaming through his head at all times.
Take a mind that was busier than we can even imagine, add to it rather poor communication skills, further add an awareness of how much more intelligent he was than most people. It doesn't mean he was an asshole and it doesn't mean he was crazy, at least not until his mind properly had the break. He was too intelligent for most of us to identify with so we read his writings and assume what is in our heads after reading it is what was likely in his head when writing it - trust me, it wasn't.
I've read enough of his work to see how he often changes styles to better suit the subject material. The writings included in Why I Am So Wise we're more like him venting than him trying to win a literary award. He was doing what most intelligent people do from time to time. He also knew that people were already looking at him like he was a crazy person after some recent publications and his radical views in general so instead of explaining himself, he played the role of the crazy person.
Bombastic, self aggrandizing far beyond his normal self-assessments. And of course, no one got the joke. It reminds me of Aleister Crowley writing about sacrificing babies and no one being bright enough to understand it was a euphemism for masturbation.
To this day countless people think he was a mass child murderer. That one joke that no one got stayed with him the rest of his life, he was investigated by the Crown, shunned by his friends, spit on in public, etc. Nietzsche was a lot similar - people who are not just comfortable but enthusiastic about living outside of the cultural norms of their times often are misunderstood and for that fact alone hated. Add to it how open and honest he was in his disdain of Christianity and its slave morality - people rarely hear the message in his words.
The focus on the words, they get defensive, they often feel insulted by his views and opinions. So the message is never understood. Its just sad, we can learn so much from Nietzsche. And you don't have to agree with him to learn from him. It was created by the slave classes and essentially made a virtue our of numerous personal shortcomings. It also made it to where improvement of the morals was impossible, they weren't subject to review or criticism because they came from god and god is always right.
The age old Christian trump card - belief in statements that are literally impossible to disprove in an empirical manner. So they even prove that science isn't to be trusted. An open mind would read his critique and contemplate it, a Christian mind and you don't have to be an active Christian, just indoctrinated into the ways of thinking that pervade our country based on the church's forced and fear based morality - refusal to admit a mistake, refusal to consider and opinion different than your own, a constant defensiveness about ANYTHING that doesn't support your current beliefs, etc will read 2 sentences of him being critical of their religion and run for zee hills.
The LAST think you want is real truth or reason when you know you're believing in a lie or at best grasping at straws. But - this is the world we live in today, a world that needs the knowledge of Nietzsche more than ever but is too busy calling him names for challenging them and speaking in an intelligent manner to even consider what's being said.
For anyone who is genuinely interested in Nietzsche - if you're new to him - don't start here. Its a strange and difficult read to begin with and you will NOT understand his very dry and sarcastic and ironic style of humor or satire. It also doesn't really talk about any of his really influential beliefs or ideas at length, the couple it hits on are glossed over rather quickly and not explained. And if you want my advice, even thought its his most popular book, don't start on Zarathrustra either.
It too is written in an odd style and can definitely be off putting to anyone who doesn't understand the guy to some degree. I would start on Human, All Too Human. It's a good middle ground where you can get a good taste of him and his grating style but without being run off by it. They question things that have been widely accepted for generations if not centuries. They're comfortable with being abrasive. Most of them lived lives either completely isolated from society or largely avoidant of it when possible.
They aren't there for you to identify with or to lather you in confirmation bias. They're there to challenge your tightly held preconceived notions, they're there to try to ask a question in a way that makes you think rather than just react, and most of the time their only goal is to offer up a different perspective than you're used to.
I get that that can come of as threatening to some people but that's when its most important to be a person of high character and hear it our before condemning it. You might actually. View 1 comment. Jul 01, Amy rated it really liked it. He is sexist but his anger and boldness and humour made his ideas so enticing. At the end of the day gotta give Nietzsche credit how few fucks he gave. I listened to Wagner during this quick read and highly suggest doing the same. Feb 04, Bening Tirta Muhammad rated it liked it.
Reading this book, I put myself into less defensive mode. And this book struck my reasoning why I believe in God. It appears to me that some of us I assume still have blind faith in Islam, at least partially. Why partially? Because we only start to really believe - the start is the state of aqil baligh while the time before we were just asked to - after long living in believing environment.
We are not given enough means to ponder upon in deciding whether to believe or not to. There - in the envi Reading this book, I put myself into less defensive mode. There - in the environment - we only learn what we have to know or rather are taught the cores needed, to defence our belief only. The book discovers to me some cases in which logically wrong reasoning occurs. The logic is wrong, because of wrong blaming.
I would also add that today's Islam turns out dogmatic like Christianity, thinking that how these days we rarely ask if we have doubts on things which must have explanation. Maybe how you approached the book is rather out of the etiquette "supposed"! Sep 08, Kieran Glover rated it liked it. Hmmm Nietzsche. I enjoyed this read but didn't fully grasp it all because he really does have so much knowledge about everything.
I found it more comical than anything else, hearing him inhabit his own ego for a hundred pages or so was insightful and also comical.
I found it hard to get over the language he uses because he has such an expansive vocabulary. May 04, Laala Kashef Alghata rated it did not like it. I either did not understand him doubtful and therefore it went over my head and therefore my opinion is negligible, or 2. I did understand him and thoroughly disliked him.
He is pompous and grating. View all 5 comments. Oct 24, Kevin rated it really liked it Recommends it for: People who've already read a good deal of philsophy, who don't know when to stop asking questions. Shelves: philosophy. The first forty or so pages really turned me off. It is like a caricature of Nietzsche more than anything I've read by him.
If it were the first thing I'd read by him I'd probably have been put off his work for a long time. The first half consists mostly of an examination of the climate and cuisine yes, cuisine that made him so great, usually expressed in flat declarations - sometimes obscure and almost always outrageous. As a colorful example, he describes one musical composition of his by say The first forty or so pages really turned me off.
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