Nietzsche's Aphorisms

[ESHQUIA]

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.

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

Plato was a bore.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

[Loki]

Nice. :) I always liked Nietzsche...

[blp]

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

The quote as I know it (from Twilight of the Idols) is: 'From the military school of life: what does not kill me makes me stronger', though it's hardly ever quoted complete. The beginning suggests that Nietzche himself was being rather more playful and ambiguous than is generally assumed.

[mono]

Though I can never agree entirely with Friedrich Nietzsche, I have always loved this passage from The Joyful Wisdom:

And Once More Grow Clear. We, the generous and rich in spirit, who stand at the sides of the streets like open fountains and would hinder no one from drinking from us, we do not know, alas! how to defend ourselves when we should like to do so; we have no means of preventing ourselves being made turbid and dark - we have no means of preventing the age in which we live casting its up-to-date rubbish into us, nor of hindering filthy birds throwing their excrement, the boys their trash, and fatigued resting travelers their misery, great and small, into us. But we do as we have always done; we take whatever is cast into us down into our depths - for we are deep, we do not forget - and once more grow clear.

[Pendragon]

As I have stated elsewhere, if you disagree with a man, you owe the man the courtesy to find out what he believes. It may shock some who have read my other posts to know that I have read Nietzche. And why not? His famous statement that God was dead because man had reached a point where science and knowlege had made God obsolete is usually all people scream about. He was much deeper than that. I would agree that what does not kill me makes me strong. Some of his other statements certainly have merit. But I can never wholely agree with him, as I am part of his "blight on humanity". I am a Christian. Does that make me evil? Depends on your POV, now doesn't it? I refuse to totally knock Nietzche, he had a right to his opinion, and based it on what he believed.

[starrwriter]

But I can never wholely agree with him, as I am part of his "blight on humanity". I am a Christian.

I think you have to look at Nietzsche's family situation to understand his attitude. When he was a boy, he was ridiculed by other boys as "the little parson" because he was the son and grandson of stern Protestant ministers. After his father died when he was 7, he was force-fed Christian religion by a henhouse of pious women (mother, aunts, sister.) Smothered by all that female piety, he had to rebel against Christianity to find his identity as a man. It was a yin-yang thing.

[ThatIndividual]

Pendragon writes, "I am a Christian. Does that make me evil?"
Nietzsche would certainly not call a Christian evil. In fact, Nietzsche doesn't (didn't?) believe in evil. He would probably call the Christian confused. Tricked. Misled. Mentally imprisoned. Anything but evil.
If we read further into Nietzsche than his "God is Dead" passage, we find that Nietzsche's distaste for religion goes much deeper than a reaction to his upbringing in a protestant household. Nietzshce saw himself as a bit of a cultural physician, and basically diagnosed us all, Christians especially, with certain sickness of the spirit. We are ashamed of ourselves. The horrible symptom: guilt. Christianity, for example, teaches that man is sinful and bad by nature and thus, in need of a savior. However, the demands of Christianity are such that they are inhuman and unattainable. The product of the subscription to this doctrine of living is failure, followed then by a feeling of guilt due to simply being what one is. For Nietzsche, becoming a Christian is simply cruel, and the worst kind of cruelty, that is, cruelty to oneself.
He didn't mean to attack only Christianity, but all ascetic ideals. Any system of morality. Christianity just seems like the bullseye, so to speak, of his moral target. His distaste for Mill's Utilitarianism or Kant's Categorical Imperative, or Aristotle's Virtue Ethics were equally intense.

[bhekti]

The quote as I know it (from Twilight of the Idols) is: 'From the military school of life: what does not kill me makes me stronger', though it's hardly ever quoted complete. The beginning suggests that Nietzche himself was being rather more playful and ambiguous than is generally assumed.

Would you explain that further? I'm very interested.

[starrwriter]

Would you explain that further? I'm very interested.
Not sure I agree with blp's comment. Although Nietzsche was well aware of how stupid the military could be, he did volunteer to serve in the army during the Franco-Prussian war and one of his historical heroes was Napoleon. I think that, like Hemingway, he valued certain things which could only be learned in war.

Unfortunately, many political rats jailed for criminal behavior have used that quote from Nietzsche to describe their prison experience and make themselves look noble.

[Countess]

I disagree with everyone a little bit, Nietzsche included. On an aside, I'd take Wilde's anagrams over Nietzche's aphorisms any day. They were much more clever. (-:

Okay, to wit:

1) Regarding his background: Lots of people had bad childhoods. Does that give them the right to become serial killers, or by their philosophy, to authorize it through such means as genocide? People forget Nietzche influenced Hitler. (And both died insane from syphillis, fwiw.)

2) His famous statement that God was dead because man had reached a point where science and knowlege had made God obsolete is usually all people scream about.

I always found this interesting, because of the presuppositions underlying it, including the following: for God to exist, he must be useful to man.

Of course, there are other, grosser apriori assumptions that are obvious and already been stated by sundry people in numerous places so I won't repeat them here.

3) Some of his other statements certainly have merit. But I can never wholely agree with him.

The funny thing about Lucifer is he tells the truth quite often, then taints it ever-so-slightly with a lie. Read C.S. Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" and you'll understand.

4) I am part of his "blight on humanity". I am a Christian. Does that make me evil? Depends on your POV, now doesn't it?

Noooh! If you are a Christian then you cannot make this statement in good faith. If you are a Christian, you subscribe to an absolute, objective reality where good is defined by God as God himself in his totality. Anything "not God" is to some extent slightly or totally corrupted, including humanity.

Thus, God decides what is and what is not evil. Your evilness or goodness is not related in any way to what any of us think of you, but what God alone thinks of you (and this is why Christians cannot judge.)

In sort, my opinion ain't worth squat in God's kitchen.

5) He had a right to his opinion.

Everyone does. They have the right to chose the means and mechanisms for going to Hell. ("Man hath a free will to go to Hell but none to go to heaven." - George Whitfield.)

6) Nietzsche would certainly not call a Christian evil. In fact, Nietzsche doesn't (didn't?) believe in evil.

Then explain this:

"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind."

"curse," "depravity," "poisonous," "secret", "subterranean,", "petty", "blemish": so he didn't use the word evil. He used every synonym he could find.

The problem with man-made systems of thought is that they are man-made, and thus corrupt, imperfect, fallable, and blemished. The only perfect system is God-made.

My .02 cents worth, which ain't worth nothin in God's kitchen.

T

[starrwriter]

I disagree with everyone a little bit, Nietzsche included. On an aside, I'd take Wilde's anagrams over Nietzche's aphorisms any day. They were much more clever.
Nietzsche and Wilde wrote aphorisms, not anagrams (def: "A word or phrase spelled by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase.") But I'll admit Wilde was the greater wit.


Lots of people had bad childhoods. Does that give them the right to become serial killers, or by their philosophy, to authorize it through such means as genocide? People forget Nietzche influenced Hitler. (And both died insane from syphillis, fwiw.)
Nietzsche didn't advocate genocide and Hitler used Nietzsche's writings for his own purposes half a century later. It's true that Nietzsche died insane from syphilis (as did Guy de Maupassant and many other people in those days), but Hitler was an amphetamine addict who killed himself long after he started exhibiting symptoms of paranoid psychosis.


His famous statement that God was dead because man had reached a point where science and knowlege had made God obsolete is usually all people scream about. I always found this interesting, because of the presuppositions underlying it, including the following: for God to exist, he must be useful to man.
Quite true. Nietzsche took an an anthropological view of religion and in his studies of ancient cultures, he observed that gods use to serve a practical function in human society. When they ceased to be useful, they were discarded and replaced. Until Christianity.


Nietzsche would certainly not call a Christian evil. In fact, Nietzsche doesn't (didn't?) believe in evil.Then explain this:

"I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind."

"curse," "depravity," "poisonous," "secret", "subterranean,", "petty", "blemish": so he didn't use the word evil. He used every synonym he could find.
I think there is a lot of historical evidence to support Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity. Sex was vilified unless it was blessed by the church in marriage for procreation purposes. Since the body was sinful, the church discouraged regular bathing and other hygiene, which led to infectious disease. The Inquisition employed extremely unChristian techniques to "persuade" people to believe and murdered those who refused or belonged to different religions. This all sounds depraved, poisonous and subterranean to me -- not to mention hypocritical to the max.


The problem with man-made systems of thought is that they are man-made, and thus corrupt, imperfect, fallable, and blemished. The only perfect system is God-made.
The only systems of thought that exist are man-made. And perfection is not a human quality.

[Countess]

>Nietzsche and Wilde wrote aphorisms, not anagrams.

Oh dear, did I really say "anagram"? I meant epigram. Well there you go - I'm hardly perfect. (-;

>Hitler was an amphetamine addict who killed himself long after he started exhibiting symptoms of paranoid psychosis.

Very true but his brain was swiss cheeze from the same disease. Syphillis is definitely something you want to avoid.

>Sex was vilified unless it was blessed by the church in marriage for procreation purposes. Since the body was sinful, the church discouraged regular bathing and other hygiene, which led to infectious disease.

That's very gnostic of them. That wasn't Christianity then, but gnostic heresy seeping into the church. The gnostics held that all matter (including the body) was evil.

>The Inquisition employed extremely unChristian techniques to "persuade" people to believe and murdered those who refused or belonged to different religions. This all sounds depraved, poisonous and subterranean to me -- not to mention hypocritical to the max.

Yes, but I ask you, is that true Christianity? Read the teachings of Jesus and bounce them off of the church's behavior. If it doesn't walk like a duck, or talk like a duck as they say.

"Religion", "Church" and "Christianity" are three separate entities that often get equated with each other when they shouldn't. Christianity is God's approach to man. Religion is man's approach to God, and church is his how he approaches God.

My opine only,
T

[Pendragon]

4) I am part of his "blight on humanity". I am a Christian. Does that make me evil? Depends on your POV, now doesn't it?

Noooh! If you are a Christian then you cannot make this statement in good faith. If you are a Christian, you subscribe to an absolute, objective reality where good is defined by God as God himself in his totality. Anything "not God" is to some extent slightly or totally corrupted, including humanity.

Thus, God decides what is and what is not evil. Your evilness or goodness is not related in any way to what any of us think of you, but what God alone thinks of you (and this is why Christians cannot judge.)

In sort, my opinion ain't worth squat in God's kitchen.

G'day, Countess! I agree, no one but God can truly judge me. But I am not so foolish as to think that people who do not believe in the existence of God are going to feel any such restriction. That's why I said, "It depends on your POV, now doesn't it?" The sad truth is that people can, will, and do judge you. If they take the POV that I am evil because I am a Christian, that doesn't change me. It's their POV, not the only one that counts to me, which is God's. Before Him I stand or fall, not before ANY man, be he Christian, Atheist, or whatever. I refuse to judge anyone, including Nietzsche. This only will I say. When he stated that God was dead, it was an opinion. When God called time, and Nietzsche was dead, it was a fact. :wave:

[RusSpencer]

From his Antichrist:

"It (Christian pity) preserves that which is ripe for destruction."

Comments?

[starrwriter]

From his Antichrist:

"It (Christian pity) preserves that which is ripe for destruction."

Comments?
Nietzsche loved to write for shock value, to wake up sleepy minds. He believed that Christianity was anti-life (the "next" life being more important to Christians) and slandered the reality of the only life humans had managed to salvage through the hardships of adapting to a hostile physical environment. As evolution teaches, whatever doesn't adapt will perish eventually.

[ThatIndividual]

It's interesting how quickly people are to disagree with a philosopher to whose voice they have clearly never lent an ear. We think, 'Nietzsche, that's the guy who said "God is dead" right? I don't agree with that guy, but some of his stuff has merit.' As if "God is dead" was the entirity of his message, or even that the meaning of that one statement is self-evident when lifted from the context of his entire message. In effect, what people tend to do is, stuff Nietzsche in his "God is dead/ Friends with Hitler" box and decide that's he's an atheist and that he's bad. When in reality, whether you know it or not, NIetzsche may be the best friend that you never knew you had. He only sought to help you.

"Help me!!??" they exclaim... "As if I needed help?!?!" and they blink...

NIetzsche sighs and replies... "Alas... Precisely."

[ThatIndividual]

Also note: Adolph Hitler was a lunatic that used NIetzsche in the same way that David Koresh used the Bible. To say that Nietzsche influenced Hitler is to say that Jesus Christ influenced David Koresh and the whole Branch Dividian thing. The Nietzsche/Hitler connection is a prima facie mistake made by only those who haven't given thorough attention, along with patience and an open mind, to an adequate portion of Nietzsche's message.

[starrwriter]

It's interesting how quickly people are to disagree with a philosopher to whose voice they have clearly never lent an ear. We think, 'Nietzsche, that's the guy who said "God is dead" right? I don't agree with that guy, but some of his stuff has merit.' As if "God is dead" was the entirity of his message, or even that the meaning of that one statement is self-evident when lifted from the context of his entire message.
How true. If people would bother to read the original "God is dead" passage, they would see that Nietzsche delivered the message through a madman who felt a terrible sense of calamity, as if the earth had become unhinged from its orbit around the sun and was plunging into the void of space. He was no happy camper.

It's obvious to me that Nietzsche thought a believable god was necessary to the healthy functioning of a society. He was simply pointing out that the Christian god had become unbelievable to an increasing segment of the population educated in science and rationalism.

[Slugfly]

Actually it was a man (a priest if I remember correctly) who had retired in the forest to be closer to god... and Zarathustra was kind and cordial with the man and then on leaving he said (something to the effect of) "could it be that this man in his forest hasn't yet heard that God is dead?" The words are repeated a few times throughout Zarathustra (and maybe in other books, don't remember) so I'm not saying you're wrong, but as far as I know the preacher in the forest was the first mention of the now cliche quote.

This is my first post and I registered here for the sole reason that I was delighted to find a thread about Nietzsche (stumbled here surfing for his quote "he who writes and blood and aphorisms...")

edit: in regards to the first post, Nietzsche is the person who held my hand and led me out of my dark nihilism... and so he's my hero. I find it quite tough to follow a single (but often repeated) teaching of his:

"Show you the way? This is my way, where is yours?"
"Only when you have forgotten me will I return to you."

[bygone]

I tried to go through this forum for Nietzsche aphorisms. But due to the brightness of the background of this page template, my reading has been compromised. Let me note something about Nietzsche from my reading experience. I liked his notion of 'Will to power'. When we connect it with the Foucauldian analyses of history of various discourses, this notion will be more clear to us. :brow:

[rdunlap]

I make no pretense as to speak Nietzsche’s mind; indeed, I confess but a vague and ancient familiarity with the notion that “God is dead”. But what I do recall, perhaps tainted by time, was an implication that God could not die. That only man’s belief in God possessed mortality. By means of obsolescence, or perhaps fear, we’ve slipped into an ungodly existence. Perhaps the depth or height of such thought has rendered me silly, but if it is as we perceive, than the death of God is of mortal hands.

Meanwhile, I’m looking to blame the Gnostics for everything else.

[genoveva]

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.

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

Plato was a bore.

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

Here's some more "Maxims and Arrows" from Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols (translated by R. J. Hollingdale, 1968):

#7. Which is it? is man only God's mistake or God only man's mistake?-

#13. Man created woman- but what out of? Out of a rib of his God, of his 'ideal'...

#20. The complete woman perpetrates literature in the same way as she perpetrates a little sin: as an experiment, in passing, looking around to see if someone notices and so that someone may notice...

#25. Contentment protects one even from catching a cold. Has a woman who knew she was well dressed ever caught a cold?- I am assuming she was hardly dressed at all.

#26. I mistrust all systematizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.

#27. Women are considered deep- why? because one can never discover any bottom to them. Women are not even shallow.

#28. If a woman possesses manly virtues one should run away from her; and if she does not possess them she runs away herself.

#38. Are you genuine? or only an actor? A representative? or that itself which is represented? - Finally you are no more than an imitation of an actor...Second question of conscience.

#39. The disappointed man speaks. - I sought great human beings, I never found anything but the apes of their ideal.

#40. Are you one who looks on? or who sets to work? - or who looks away, turns aside...Third question of conscience.

#41. Do you want to accompany? or go on ahead? or go off alone?...One must know what one wants and that one wants.- Fourth question of conscience.

#43. What does it matter that I am proved right! I am too much in the right. - And he who laughs best today will also laugh last.