I am at my second time around reading Thus Spot Zarathustra, by Freidrich Nietzsche, and it goes to show you how much I love and adore this book, and this philosopher, and how much of a lasting impression he has left on me. As such, I take it upon myself to introduce you to Nietzsche if you aren't familiar with him by quoting various passages which are both important to understanding Nietzsche, as well as ones I happen to just like because I just do.
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And life itself confided this secret to me: "Behold," it said, "I am that which must always be overcome itself. Indeed, you call it a will to procreate or a drive to an end, to something higher, farther, more manifold: but all this is one, and one secret.
The bite on which I gagged the most is not the knowledge that life itself requires hostility and death and torture-crosses - but once I asked, and I was almost choked by my question: What? does life require even the rabble? Are poisoned wells required, and stinking fires and soiled dreams and maggots in the bread of life?
Not my hatred but my nausea gnawed hungrily at my life. Alas, I often grew weary of the spirit when I found that even the rabble had esprit. And I turned my back on those who rule when I saw what they now call ruling: higgling and haggling for power - with the rabble.
Not my hatred but my nausea gnawed hungrily at my life. Alas, I often grew weary of the spirit when I found that even the rabble had esprit. And I turned my back on those who rule when I saw what they now call ruling: higgling and haggling for power - with the rabble.
And then again there are such as love gestures and think that virtue is some kind of gesture. Their knees always adore, and their hands are hymns to virtue, but their heart knows nothing about it.
And then again there are such as consider it virtue to say, "Virtue is necessary"; but at the bottom they believe only that the police is necessary.
And some who cannot see what is high in man call it virtue that they see all-too-closely what is low in man: thus they call their evil eye virtue.
And some want to be edified and elevated, and they call that virtue, while others want to be bowled over, and they call that virtue too.
And thus almost all believe that they have a share in virtue; and at the very least everyone wants to be an expert on good and evil.
And then again there are such as consider it virtue to say, "Virtue is necessary"; but at the bottom they believe only that the police is necessary.
And some who cannot see what is high in man call it virtue that they see all-too-closely what is low in man: thus they call their evil eye virtue.
And some want to be edified and elevated, and they call that virtue, while others want to be bowled over, and they call that virtue too.
And thus almost all believe that they have a share in virtue; and at the very least everyone wants to be an expert on good and evil.
Many die too late, and a few die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange: "Die at the right time!"
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