I am currently reading Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra for my Existentialism class at The Master's College. In the early chapters of the work, Zarathustra tells the people of the village that "God is dead" which they laugh at and later hate. Even though I may not agree with everything he says, Nietzsche is extremely quotable and makes you think about who you are in this world, what are the point of morals, and if you're really yourself or just going along with the herd mentality. Without further ado..."Ten truths a day you must find; else you will still be seeking truth by night, and your soul will remain hungry." (Chapter 2 "On the Teachers of Virture")
"Ten times a day you must laugh and be cheerful; else you will be disturbe at night by your stomach, this father of gloom." (Ibid.)
"Blessed are the sleepy ones: for they shall soon drop off." (Ibid.)
"The creator wanted to look away from himself; so he created the world." ("On the Afterworldly")
"The body is a great reason, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a herd and a shepherd." ("On the Despisers of the Body")
"Instruments and toys are sense and spirit; behind them still lies the spirit." (Ibid.)
"... in the end all your passions became virtues and all your devils, angels." ("On Enjoying and Suffering the Passions")
"But what matter your good people to me? Much about your good people nauseates me; and verily, it is not their evil." ("On the Pale Criminal")
"Write with blood, and you will experience that blood is spirit." ("On Reading and Writing")
"We are all of us fair beasts of burden, male and female asses." (Ibid.)
"There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness." (Ibid.)
"It is by invisible hands that we are bent and tortured worst." ("On the Tree on the Mountainside")
"But it is with man as it is with the tree. The more he aspires to the height and light, the more strongly do his roots strive earthward, downward, into the dark-the deep-into evil." (Ibid.)
"Nobody speaks to me; the frost of loneliness makes me shiver." (Ibid.)
"And even the liberated spirit must still purify himself." (Ibid.)
"Know that the noble man stands in everybody's way. The noble man stands in the way of the good too: and even if they call him one of the good, they thus want to do away with him" (Ibid.)
"You should love peace as a means to new wars- and the short peace more than the long... Let your peace be a victory!" ("Of War and Warriors")
"In sarcasm the prankster and weakling meet. But they misunderstand each other." (Ibid.)
"... man is something that shall be overcome" (Ibid.)
"State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters." ("On the New Idol")
"But the state tells lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies- and whatever it has it has stolen." (Ibid.)
"All-too-many are born: for the superfluous the state was invented." (Ibid.)
"They are always sick; they vomit their gall and call it a newspaper." (Ibid.)
"The earth is free even now for the great souls. There are still many empty seats for the lonesome and twosome, fanned by the fragrance of the silent seas." (Ibid.)
"Flee, my friend, into your solitude!" ("On the Flies of the Marketplace")
"Where solitude ceases the marketplace begins; and where the marketplace begins the noise of the great actors and the buzzing of the poisonous flies begins too." (Ibid.)
"In the world even the best things amount to nothing without someone to make a show of them..." (Ibid.)
"Blood is what they want from you in all innocence." (Ibid.)
"... you are the bad conscience of your neighbors: for they are unworthy of you." (Ibid.)
"It is bad to live in cities: these too many are in heat." ("Of Chastity")
"Chastity is a virtue in some, but almost a vice in many. They abstain, but the bitch, sensuality, leers enviously out of everything they do." (Ibid.)
"It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters." (Ibid.)
"Our faith in others betrays in what respect we would like to have faith in ourselves." ("On Friends")
"In a friend one should have one's best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him." (Ibid.)
"Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell, and you should break a tooth on it." (Ibid.)
"As much as you give the friend, I will give even my enemy, and I shall not be any the poorer for it. There is comradeship: let there be friendship!" (Ibid.)
"Humanity still has no goal." ("On the Thousand and One Goals")
No comments:
Post a Comment