The Will to Power, Books III and IV quotes

We had the whole pathos of mankind against us,—our notion of what "truth" ought to be, of what the service of truth ought to be, our objectivity, our method, our calm, cautious and distrustful manner were altogether despicable....

At bottom, that which has kept men back most, is an æsthetic taste: they believed in the picturesque effect of truth; what they demanded of the scientist was, that he should make a strong appeal to their imagination.

From the above, it would almost seem as if the very reverse had been achieved, as if a sudden jump had been made:

Profound disinclination to halt once and for all at any collective view of the world.

The charm of the opposite point of view: the refusal to relinquish the stimulus residing in the enigmatical.

The hypothesis that, at bottom, things proceed in such a moral fashion that human reason must be right, is a mere piece of good-natured and simple-minded trustfulness, the result of the belief in Divine truthfulness—God regarded as the Creator of all things.—These concepts are our …

"Consciousness"—to what extent is the idea which is thought of, the idea of will, or the idea of a feeling (which is known by us alone), quite superficial?

Our inner world is also "appearance."

I am convinced of the phenomenalism of the inner world also:

This "inner world of appearance" is treated with precisely the same forms and procedures as the "outer" world.

We never come across a single "fact": pleasure and pain are more recently evolved intellectual phenomena....

Causality evades us; to assume the existence of an immediate causal relation between thoughts, as Logic does, is the result of the coarsest and most clumsy observation. There are all sorts of passions that may intervene between two thoughts:

Causality evades us; to assume the existence of an immediate causal relation between thoughts, as Logic does, is the result of the coarsest and most clumsy observation.

There are all sorts of passions that may intervene between two thoughts: but the interaction is too rapid—that is why we fail to recognise them, that is why we actually deny their existence....

"Thinking," as the epistemologists understand \r it, never takes place at all: it is an absolutely gratuitous fabrication, arrived at by selecting one element from the process and by eliminating all the rest—an artificial adjustment for the purpose of the understanding....

In short:

Everything that becomes conscious is a final phenomenon, a conclusion—and is the cause of nothing; all succession of phenomena in consciousness is absolutely atomistic.

—And we tried to understand the universe from the opposite point of view—as if nothing were effective or real, save thinking, feeling, willing! ...

Our "outside world," as we conceive it every instant, is indissolubly bound up with the old error of cause: we interpret by means of the schematism of "the thing," etc.

"Inner experience" only enters consciousness when it has found a language which the individual can understand—that is to say, a translation of a certain condition into conditions with which he is familiar; "understand" means simply this: to be able to express something new in the terms of something old or familiar.

For instance, "I feel unwell"—a judgment of this sort presupposes a very great and recent neutrality on the part of the observer:

It is not a question of "subject and object," but of a particular species of animal which can prosper only by means of a certain exactness, or, better still, regularity in recording its perceptions (in order that experience may be capitalised)....

Knowledge works as an instrument of power.

It is therefore obvious that it increases with each advance of power....

In opposition to Positivism, which halts at phenomena and says, "These are only facts and nothing more," I would say:

No, facts are precisely what is lacking, all that exists consists of interpretations.

We cannot establish any fact "in itself": it may even be nonsense to desire to do such a thing. "Everything is subjective," ye say: but that in itself is interpretation.

"Everything is subjective," ye say: but that in itself is interpretation. The subject is nothing given, but something superimposed by fancy, something introduced behind.—Is it necessary to set an interpreter behind the interpretation already to hand? Even that would be fantasy, hypothesis.

To the extent to which knowledge has any sense at all, the world is knowable: but it may be interpreted differently, it has not one sense behind it, but hundreds of senses.—"Perspectivity."

It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the other instincts as their norm.

To the extent to which knowledge has any sense at all, the world is knowable: but it may be interpreted differently, it has not one sense behind it, but hundreds of senses.—"Perspectivity."

It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses for and against.

Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the other instincts as their norm.

It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses for and against.

Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the other instincts as their norm.

Where our ignorance really begins, at that point from which we can see no further, we set a word; for instance, the word "I," the word "do," the word "suffer"—these concepts may be the horizon lines of our knowledge, but they are not "truths."

It is our needs that interpret the world; our instincts and their impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power; each has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the other instincts as their norm.

Where our ignorance really begins, at that point from which we can see no further, we set a word; for instance, the word "I," the word "do," the word "suffer"—these concepts may be the horizon lines of our knowledge, but they are not "truths."

Owing to the phenomenon "thought," the ego is taken for granted;

and precisely the one factor which is in question, the "reality of thought," is not touched upon,—so that, in this form, the apparitional character of thought cannot be denied. What Descartes wanted to prove was, that thought not only had apparent reality, but absolute reality.

The concept substance is an outcome of the concept subject, and not conversely!

If we surrender the concept soul, the subject, the very conditions for the concept "substance" are lacking. Degrees of Being are obtained, but Being is lost.

Not a "substance," but rather something which in itself strives after greater strength; and which wishes to "preserve" itself only indirectly (it wishes to surpass itself).

Everything that reaches consciousness as an entity is already enormously complicated: we never have anything more than the semblance of an entity.

The phenomenon of the body is the richer, more distinct, and more tangible phenomenon: it should be methodically drawn to the front, and no mention should be made of its ultimate significance.

(d) Biology of the Instinct of Knowledge. Perspectivity.

Truth is that kind of error without which a certain species of living being cannot exist.

The value for Life is ultimately decisive.

Likewise our love of the beautiful: it is also the creative will. Both senses stand side by side; the sense of truth is the means wherewith the power is appropriated to adjust things according to one's taste. The love of adjusting and reforming—a primeval love!

We can only take cognisance of a world which we ourselves have made.

Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge. The tracing of its relation to many other things (or the relation of kind)—how should "knowledge" be of another? The way to know and to investigate is in itself among the conditions of life;

this actual condition may be only an accidental, not in the least an essential; one.

Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not adjusted for knowledge.

The most strongly credited a priori "truths" are, to my mind, mere assumptions pending further investigation;

for instance, the law of causation is a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it would mean the ruin of our kind. But is it therefore true?

What an extraordinary conclusion!

As if truth were proved by the mere fact that man survives!

That weak feelings should all be regarded as alike, as the same, is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a confusion of two very intimately associated feelings in the ascertainment of these feelings;—but who is it that ascertains?

Faith is the very first step in every sensual impression: a sort of yea-saying is the first intellectual activity!

A "holding-a-thing-to-be-true" is the beginning. It were our business, therefore, to explain how the "holding-of-a-thing-to-be-true" arose! What sensation lies beneath the comment "true"?

Originally there was chaos among our ideas. Those ideas which were able to stand side by side remained over, the greater number perished—and are still perishing.

The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew: the gregarious instinct in the background.

The assumption of similar facts is the first condition for "similar souls." For the purpose of mutual understanding and government.

The inventive force which devised the categories, worked in the service of our need of security, of quick intelligibility, in the form of signs, sounds, and abbreviations.—"Substance," "subject," "object," "Being," "Becoming," are not matters of metaphysical truth.

It was the powerful who made the names of things into law, and, among the powerful, it was the greatest artists in abstraction who created the categories.

A moral—that is to say, a method of living which long experience and experiment have tested and proved efficient, at last enters consciousness as a law, as dominant.... And then the whole group of related values and conditions become part of it:

From that time forward they passed as a priori, as beyond experience, as irrefutable. And, possibly, they may have been the expression of no more than a certain practicality answering the ends of a race and a species,—their usefulness alone is their "truth."

The object is, not "to know," but to schematise,—to impose as much regularity and form upon chaos, as our practical needs require.

In the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a need in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and calculation.

the instinct which makes us see the utility of concluding as we do conclude, is in our blood, we are almost this instinct.... But what simplicity it is to attempt to derive from this fact that we possess an absolute truth! ...

The inability to contradict anything is a proof of impotence but not of "truth."

We are not able to affirm and to deny one and the same thing: that is a principle of subjective experience—which is not in the least "necessary," but only a sign of inability.

We it was who created the "thing," the "same thing," the subject, the attribute, the action, the object, the substance, and the form, after we had carried the process of equalising, coarsening, and simplifying as far as possible.

The world seems logical to us, because we have already made it logical.

Fundamental solution.—We believe in reason: this is, however, the philosophy of colourless concepts. Language is built upon the most naïf prejudices.

Fundamental solution.—We believe in reason: this is, however, the philosophy of colourless concepts.

Language is built upon the most naïf prejudices.

Now we read discord and problems into things, because we are able to think only in the form of language—we also believe in the "eternal truth" of "wisdom" (for instance, subject, attribute, etc.).

We cease from thinking if we do not wish to think under the control of language; the most we can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt concerning the question whether the boundary here really is a boundary.

Rational thought is a process of interpreting according to a scheme which we cannot reject.

There is no greater error than that of making psychical and physical phenomena the two faces, the two manifestations of the same substance. By this means nothing is explained: the concept "substance" is utterly useless as a means of explanation.

The essential thing is to start out from the body and to use it as the general clue. It is by far the richer phenomenon, and allows of much more accurate observation.

The belief in the body is much more soundly established than the belief in spirit.

"However strongly a thing may be believed, the degree of belief is no criterion of its truth." But what is truth? Perhaps it is a form of faith, which has become a condition of existence? Then strength would certainly be a criterion;

Parmenides said: "One can form no concept of the non-existent";—we are at the other extreme, and say, "That Of which a concept can be formed, is certainly fictional."

There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes—therefore there must be many kinds of "truths," and consequently there can be no truth.

Inscriptions over the porch of a modern lunatic asylum.

We are aghast, we feel insecure, we will have something familiar, which can be relied upon.... As soon as we are shown the existence of something old in a new thing, we are pacified.

The so-called instinct of causality is nothing more than the fear of the unfamiliar, and the attempt at finding something in it which is already known.

—It is not a search for causes, but for the familiar.

As interpretations (not as established facts)—and in what respect were they perhaps necessary interpretations? (as "preservative measures")—all in the sense of a Will to Power.

Our values are interpreted into the heart of things.

Is there, then, any sense in the absolute?

… it is not "truth" struggling with Life, but one kind of Life with another kind.—But the former would fain be the higher kind!—Here we must prove that some order of rank is necessary,—that the first problem is the order of rank among kinds of Life.

The belief, "It is thus and thus," must be altered into the will, "Thus and thus shall it be."

Science hitherto has been a means of disposing of the confusion of things by hypotheses which "explain everything"—that is to say, it has been the result of the intellect's repugnance to chaos. This same repugnance takes hold of me when I contemplate myself;

The "purposelessness of all phenomena": the belief in this is the result of the view that all interpretations hitherto have been false, it is a generalisation on the part of discouragement and weakness—it is not a necessary belief.

The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he denies that there can be one!

The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a symptom of growth or decline.

The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a symptom of growth or decline.

Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a sign of strength.

One should not desire to deprive the world of its disquieting and enigmatical nature.

Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a sign of strength.

One should not desire to deprive the world of its disquieting and enigmatical nature.

Against the desire for reconciliation and peaceableness. To this also belongs every attempt on the part of monism.

Only as the result of a certain bluntness of vision and the desire for simplicity does the beautiful and the "valuable" make its appearance: in itself it is purely fanciful.

We know that the destruction of an illusion does not necessarily produce a truth, but only one more piece of ignorance; it is the extension of our "empty space," an increase in our "waste."

Of what alone can knowledge consist?—"Interpretation," the introduction of a sense into things, not "explanation" (in the majority of cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation which has grown incomprehensible and little more than a mere sign).

Of what alone can knowledge consist?—"Interpretation," the introduction of a sense into things, not "explanation" (in the majority of cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation which has grown incomprehensible and little more than a mere sign).

There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, everything, is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all things are our opinions.

The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth," the ascertaining of facts in general, is fundamentally different from the creative placing, forming, moulding, subduing, and willing which lies at the root of philosophy.

The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth," the ascertaining of facts in general, is fundamentally different from the creative placing, forming, moulding, subduing, and willing which lies at the root of philosophy.

To give a sense to things—this duty always remains over, provided no sense already lies in them.

The same holds good of sounds, and also of the fate of nations they are susceptible of the most varied interpretations and turns, for different purposes.

but a romance, a piece of human sculpture, made from a meagre sum of observation; it is "in flux"; it is something that evolves, a great revolving lie continually moving onwards and never getting any nearer to truth—for there is no such thing as "truth."

To stamp Becoming with the character of Being—this is the highest Will to Power.

The twofold falsification, by the senses on the one hand, by the intellect on the other, with the view of maintaining a world of being, of rest, of equivalent cases, etc.

Has anybody ever been able to testify to a force! No, but to effects, translated into a completely strange language.

Regularity in sequence has so spoilt us, that we no longer wonder at the wonderful process.

A force of which we cannot form any idea, is an empty word, and ought to have no civic rights in the city of science:

in order to be able to reckon it up, we must be aware of constant causes; but since we find no such constant causes in reality, we invent them for ourselves and call them atoms. This is the origin of the atomic theory.

The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing all phenomena by means of formulæ—is that really "understanding"?

What would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?—Thus "constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were therefore invented;—what has been attained thereby?

The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing all phenomena by means of formulæ—is that really "understanding"?

What would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?

—Thus "constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were therefore invented;—what has been attained thereby?

Individual power is by no means surrendered through it. In the same way, there exists in the act of commanding, an acknowledgment of the fact that the absolute power of the adversary has not been overcome, absorbed, or dissipated.

"Obedience," and "command," are forms of the game of war.

The Will to Power interprets (an organ in the process of formation has to be interpreted): it defines, it determines gradations, differences of power. Mere differences of power could not be aware of each other as such:

During the greater part of the time occupied in the formation of a certain quality, this quality does not help to preserve the individual; it is of no use to him, and particularly not in his struggle with external circumstances and foes.

What is ultimately "useful"?

It is necessary to ask, "Useful for what"?

What is ultimately "useful"?

It is necessary to ask, "Useful for what"?

For instance, that which promotes the lasting powers of the individual might be unfavourable to his strength or his beauty; that which preserves him might at the same time fix him and keep him stable throughout development.

his development involves the triumph, the predominance, of isolated parts; the wasting away, or the "development into organs," of other parts.

The influence of "environment" is nonsensically overrated in Darwin, the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely uses, exploits "environment."

The new forms built up by this inner power are not produced with a view to any end;

The belief in willing.

To believe that a thought may be the cause of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles.

The consistency of science demands that once we have made the world thinkable for ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the desires, the will, etc., thinkable—that is to say, we should deny them and treat them as errors of the …

The theory of chance: the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (this creative power is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely passive).

I recognised the active and creative power within the accidental.—Accident is in itself nothing more than the clashing of creative impulses.

Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an organic being, that part which becomes conscious is a mere means:

a sort of cautiousness, selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we are in the presence of an activity to which it would be necessary to ascribe an incalculably higher and more extensive intellect than the one we are acquainted with.

We learn to think less of all that is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the smallest part of ourselves.

Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance, air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by us, yet influence us continually.

the higher type is an example of an incomparably greater degree of complexity a greater sum of co-ordinated elements: but on this account disintegration becomes a thousand times more threatening.

"Genius" is the sublimest machine in existence—hence it is the most fragile.

Third propositio:: The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: the Christian).

Excessive intellectual strength sets itself new goals; it is not in the least satisfied by the command and the leadership of the inferior world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the "individual."

We are more than the individual: we are the whole chain itself, with the tasks of all the possible futures of that chain in us.

3. Theory of the Will to Power and of Valuations.

Spinoza's proposition concerning "self-preservation" ought as a matter of fact to put a stop to change. But the proposition is false; the contrary is true.

In all living organisms it can be clearly shown that they do everything not to remain as they are, but to become greater....

"Will to power" and causality.—From a psychological point of view the idea of "cause" is our feeling of power in the act which is called willing—our concept effect is the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which moves things....

Is the fact that science is possible a proof of the principle of causation—"From like causes, like effects"—"A permanent law of things"—"Invariable order"?

Because something is calculable, is it therefore on that account necessary?

If something happens thus, and thus only, it is not the manifestation of a "principle," of a "law," of "order." What happens is that certain quanta of power begin to operate, and their essence is to exercise their power over all other quanta of power.

… of the will which is the cause of happiness (to this superficial theory I am more particularly opposed—this absurd psychological forgery in regard to the most simple things), but it is that the will is always striving to overcome that which stands in its way.

The feeling of happiness lies precisely in the discontentedness of the will, in the fact that without opponents and obstacles it is never satisfied.

"The happy man": a gregarious ideal.

Then it makes the attempt to overcome, to appropriate, and to incorporate that with which it comes into contact—what people call "nourishment" is merely a derivative, a utilitarian application, of the primordial will to become stronger.

Pain is so far from acting as a diminution of our feeling of power, that it actually forms in the majority of cases a spur to this feeling,—the obstacle is the stimulus of the will to power.

Pain has been confounded with one of its subdivisions, which is exhaustion:

Our greatest relief came when we eliminated the general consciousness which postulates ends and means—in this way we ceased from being necessarily pessimists....

Our greatest indictment of life was the existence of God.

Concerning the value of "Becoming."—If the movement of the world really tended to reach a final state, that state would already have been reached. The only fundamental fact, however, is that it does not tend to reach a final state:

the sum of its value always remains equal: expressed otherwise, it has no value; for that according to which it might be measured, and in regard to which the word value might have some sense, is entirely lacking.

The collective value of the world defies valuation; for this reason philosophical pessimism belongs to the order of farces.

We should not make our little desiderata the judges of existence! Neither should we make culminating evolutionary forms (e.g. mind) the "absolute" which stands behind evolution!

Mankind is much more of a means than an end. It is a question of type: mankind is merely the experimental material; it is the overflow of the ill-constituted—a field of ruins.

Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a new blessedness was discovered—a new feeling.

The standpoint of "value" is the same as that of the conditions of preservation and enhancement, in regard to complex creatures of relative stability appearing in the course of evolution.

Manu's words again are simple and dignified: "Virtue could hardly rely on her own strength alone. Really it is only the fear of punishment that keeps men in their limits, and leaves every one in peaceful possession of his own."

The State, or unmorality organised, is from within—the police, the penal code, status, commerce, and the family; and from without, the will to war, to power, to conquest and revenge.

A multitude will do things an individual will not, because of the division of responsibility, of command and execution; because the virtues of obedience, duty, patriotism, and local sentiment are all introduced;

Psychologically, as an imaginary preference for the bungled and the mediocre, in order to preserve the weak.

Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained.

Hence ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd.

The degree of inquisitiveness, suspicion, and intolerance required in order to deal with exceptions, to suppress them as criminals, and thus to give them bad consciences, and to make them sick with their own singularity.

Morality is essentially a shield, a means of defence; and, in so far, it is a sign of the imperfectly developed man (he is still in armour; he is still stoical).

The fully developed man is above all provided with weapons: he is a man who attacks.

Morality is essentially a shield, a means of defence; and, in so far, it is a sign of the imperfectly developed man (he is still in armour; he is still stoical).

The fully developed man is above all provided with weapons: he is a man who attacks.

The weapons of war are converted into weapons of peace (out of scales and carapaces grow feathers and hair).

(The working parts are multiplied, and yet remain largely idle. Hence the cost of producing them is greater, and the cost of maintaining them by no means inconsiderable.) The advantage consists in avoiding interruption and incident loss.

Nothing is more expensive than a start.

"The higher the standard of living, the greater will be the expense of maintenance, nourishment, and propagation, as also the risk and the probability of an utter fall on reaching the summit."

In bourgeois marriages, naturally in the best sense of the word marriage, there is no question whatsoever of love any more than there is of money.

For on love no institution can be founded.

The whole matter consists in society giving leave to two persons to satisfy their sexual desires under conditions obviously designed to safeguard social order.

(That is to say, a person has a certain desire but is conscious of the danger of gratifying it, and is consequently forced to be secretive, underhand, and cautious.)

Thus any prohibition deteriorates the character of those who do not willingly submit themselves to it, but are constrained thereto.

"Punishment and reward."—These two things stand or fall together. Nowadays no one will accept a reward or acknowledge that any authority should have the power to punish. Warfare has been reformed. We have a desire: it meets with opposition:

He may be an utterly contemptible and pitiful creature; but there is nothing intrinsically despicable about rebellion in fact, in our particular society revolt is far from being disgraceful.

There are cases in which a rebel deserves honour precisely because he is conscious of certain elements in society which cry aloud for hostility; for such a man rouses us from our slumbers.

When a criminal commits but one crime against a particular person, it does not alter the fact that all his instincts urge him to make a stand against the whole social system. His isolated act is merely a symptom.

he is therefore a man of courage. Neither should punishment be regarded as penance or retribution, as though there were some recognised rate of exchange between crime and punishment.

Punishment does not purify, simply because crime does not sully.

A criminal should not be prevented from making his peace with society, provided he does not belong to the race of criminals. In the latter case, however, he should be opposed even before he has committed an act of hostility.

In the days of the Renaissance the criminal was a flourishing specimen of humanity, and acquired his own virtue for himself,—Virtue in the sense of the Renaissance—that is to say, virtù; free from moralic acid.

It is only those whom we do not despise that we are able to elevate.

Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of crime.

The man of to-day, however, is such a complicated woof even in regard to his legal valuation that he allows of the most varied interpretation.

An old Chinese sage once said he had heard that when mighty empires were doomed they began to have numberless laws.

Schopenhauer would have all rapscallions castrated, and all geese shut up in convents. But from what point of view would this be desirable? The rascal has at least this advantage over other men—that he is not mediocre;

A strong temptation fights for us; the strongest, perhaps, that exists—the temptation of truth.... Truth? How do I come by this word? I must withdraw it: I must repudiate this proud word. But no.

We do not even want it—we shall be quite able to achieve our victory of power without its help.

The real charm which fights for us, the eye of Venus which our opponents themselves deaden and blind—this charm is the magic of the extreme. The fascination which everything extreme exercises: we immoralists—we are in every way the extremists.

Terrible mistake!! In addition to this, all that makes for gregariousness, e.g. sympathy, is regarded as the more valuable side of our natures.

The individual is something quite new, and capable of creating new things.

He is something absolute, and all his actions are quite his own. The individual in the end has to seek the valuation for his actions in himself: because he has to give an individual meaning even to traditional words and notions.

There should be no choice: either one must be uppermost or nethermost—like a worm, despised, annihilated, trodden upon.

One must have tyrants against one in order to become a tyrant, i.e. in order to be free.

It is no small advantage to have a hundred swords of Damocles suspended over one: it is only thus that one learns to dance, it is only thus that one attains to any freedom in one's movements.

One should understand that passions are open to the same objections as illnesses: yet we should not be justified in doing without illnesses, and still less without passions.

We require the abnormal; we give life a tremendous shock by means of these great illnesses.

In detail the following should be distinguished:—

Now the individuals begin to form groups, these strive after privileges and preponderance, and war starts afresh in a milder form.

People demand freedom only when they have no power.

Once power is obtained, a preponderance thereof is the next thing to be coveted; if this is not achieved (owing to the fact that one is still too weak for it), then "justice" i.e. "equality of power" become the objects of desire.

It is absolutely necessary to emancipate ourselves from motives: otherwise we should not be allowed to attempt to sacrifice ourselves or to neglect ourselves!

Only the innocence of Becoming gives us the highest courage and the highest freedom.

A clean conscience must be restored to the evil man—has this been my involuntary endeavour all the time? for I take as the evil man him who is strong (Dostoievsky's belief concerning the convicts in prison should be referred to here).

[8] "Berliner"—The citizens of Berlin are renowned in Germany for their poor jokes.—Tr.

If one is clear as to the "wherefore" of one's life, then the "how" of it can take care of itself.

It is already even a sign of disbelief in the wherefore and in the purpose and sense of life—in fact, it is a sign of a lack of will—when the value of pleasure and pain step into the foreground, and hedonistic and pessimistic teaching becomes …

But the same contrast exists between the dream state and the state of intoxication; both of these states let loose all manner of artistic powers within us, but each unfetters powers of a different kind.

Dreamland gives us the power of vision, of association, of poetry: intoxication gives us the power of grand attitudes, of passion, of song, and of dance.

[9] German: "Rausch."—There is no word in English for the German expression "Rausch." When Nietzsche uses it, he means a sort of blend of our two words: intoxication and elation.—Tr.

without a certain overheating of the sexual system a man like Raphael is unthinkable.... To produce music is also in a sense to produce children; chastity is merely the economy of the artist, and in all creative artists productiveness certainly ceases with sexual potency....

Artists should not see things as they are; they should see them fuller, simpler, stronger: to this end, however, a kind of youthfulness, of vernality, a sort of perpetual elation, must be peculiar to their lives.

The states in which we transfigure things and make them fuller, and rhapsodise about them, until they reflect our own fulness and love of life back upon us: sexuality, intoxication, post-prandial states, spring, triumph over our enemies, scorn, bravado, cruelty, the ecstasy of religious feeling.

A blending of these very delicate shades of animal well-being and desires is the æsthetic state. The latter only manifests itself in those natures which are capable of that spendthrift and overflowing fulness of bodily vigour; the latter is always the primum mobile.

The sober-minded man, the tired man, the exhausted and dried-up man (e.g. the scholar), can have no feeling for art, because he does not possess the primitive force of art, which is the tyranny of inner riches: he who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

"Perfection"—In these states (more particularly in the case of sexual love) there is an ingenuous betrayal of what the profoundest instinct regards as the highest, the most desirable, the most valuable, the ascending movement of its type;

In this way beauty and ugliness are recognised as determined by our most fundamental self-preservative values. Apart from this, it is nonsense to postulate anything as beautiful or ugly.

Absolute beauty exists just as little as absolute goodness and truth.

In a particular case it is a matter of the self-preservative conditions of a certain type of man: thus the gregarious man will have quite a different feeling for beauty from the exceptional or super-man.

(2) It smothers the object which gives rise to it with a charm that is determined by the association of various judgments concerning beauty, which, however, are quite alien to the essence of the particular object.

To regard a thing as beautiful is necessarily to regard it falsely (that is why incidentally love marriages are from the social point of view the most unreasonable form of matrimony).

Concerning the genesis of Art. That making perfect and seeing perfect, which is peculiar to the cerebral system overladen with sexual energy (a lover alone with his sweetheart at eventide transfigures the smallest details:

Lastly, it is their finery which inspires them; their finery is their third little intoxication. They believe in their dressmaker as in their God: and who would destroy this faith in them? Blessed is this faith! And self-admiration is healthy!

Self-admiration can protect one even from cold!

Has a beautiful woman, who knew she was well-dressed, ever caught cold? Never yet on this earth! I even suppose a case in which she has scarcely a rag on her.

In man it is just the same. His whole economy is richer, mightier, and more complete when he is in love than when he is not.

The lover becomes a spendthrift; he is rich enough for it.

He now dares; he becomes an adventurer, and even a donkey in magnanimity and innocence; his belief in God and in virtue revives, because he believes in love.

If we cancel the suggestion of this intestinal fever from the lyric of tones and words, what is left to poetry and music? ... L'art pour l'art perhaps; the professional cant of frogs shivering outside in the cold, and dying of despair in their swamp....

Everything else was created by love.

All art works like a suggestion on the muscles and the senses which were originally active in the ingenuous artistic man; its voice is only heard by artists—it speaks to this kind of man, whose constitution is attuned to such subtlety in sensitiveness.

It is the zenith of communion and transmission between living creatures; it is the source of languages. In it, languages, whether of signs, sounds, or glances, have their birthplace. The richer phenomenon is always the beginning: our abilities are subtilised forms of richer abilities.

But even to-day we still listen with our muscles, we even read with our muscles.

Every mature art possesses a host of conventions as a basis: in so far as it is a language. Convention is a condition of great art, not an obstacle to it....

"sympathy," or what is called "altruism," is merely a product of that psycho-motor relationship which is reckoned as spirituality (psycho-motor induction, says Charles Féré).

People never communicate a thought to one another: they communicate a movement, an imitative sign which is then interpreted as a thought.

Compared with music, communication by means of words is a shameless mode of procedure; words reduce and stultify; words make impersonal; words make common that which is uncommon.

Every mature art possesses a host of conventions as a basis: in so far as it is a language.

Convention is a condition of great art, not an obstacle to it....

Every elevation of life likewise elevates the power of communication, as also the understanding of man. The power of living in other people's souls originally had nothing to do with morality, but with a physiological irritability of suggestion:

i.e. as we have already suggested, a necessary fault: for the artist who would begin to understand himself would therewith begin to mistake himself—he must not look backwards, he must not look at all; he must give.—

It is an honour for an artist to have no critical faculty; if he can criticise he is mediocre, he is modern.

Here I lay down a series of psychological states as signs of flourishing and complete life, which to-day we are in the habit of regarding as morbid.

Secondly, however, that vampire, their talent, generally forbids them such an expenditure of energy as passion demands.—

A man, who has a talent is sacrificed to that talent; he lives under the vampirism of his talent.

A man does not get rid of his passion by reproducing it, but rather he is rid of it if he is able to reproduce it. (Goethe teaches the reverse, but it seems as though he deliberately misunderstood himself here—from a sense of delicacy.)

Only in this century has woman dared to try her hand at literature ("Vers la canaille plumière écrivassière," to speak with old Mirabeau): woman now writes, she now paints, she is losing her instincts. And to what purpose, if one may put such a question?

A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the "principal" thing.

With such ideas a man certainly belongs to a world upside down: for henceforward substance seems to him something merely formal,—his own life included.

It is absolutely unworthy of a philosopher to say that "the good and the beautiful are one"; if he should add "and also the true," he deserves to be thrashed. Truth is ugly.

Art is with us in order that we may not perish through truth.

Moralising tendencies may be combated with art. Art is freedom from moral bigotry and philosophy à la Little Jack Horner: or it may be the mockery of these things. The flight to Nature, where beauty and terribleness are coupled. The concept of the great man.

finally they are satisfied to look for them in an image.... The essential factor is the kind of novel desire, the desire to imitate, the desire to live as people have lived once before in the past, and the disguise and dissimulation of the soul....

Romantic art is only an emergency exit from defective "reality."

The attempt to perform new things: revolution, Napoleon. Napoleon represents the passion of new spiritual possibilities, of an extension of the soul's domain.

"Music" and the grand style.

The greatness of an artist is not to be measured by the beautiful feelings which he evokes: let this belief be left to the girls.

It should be measured according to the extent to which he approaches the grand style, according to the extent to which he is capable of the grand style. This style and great passion have this in common—that they scorn to please;

The abundant and generous, as opposed to the seeking and the desiring.

A romanticist is an artist whose great dissatisfaction with himself makes him productive—; who looks away from himself and his fellows, and sometimes, therefore, looks backwards.

Is art the result of dissatisfaction with reality? or is it the expression of gratitude for happiness experienced? In the first case, it is romanticism; in the second, it is glorification and dithyramb (in short, apotheosis art):

A romanticist is an artist whose great dissatisfaction with himself makes him productive—; who looks away from himself and his fellows, and sometimes, therefore, looks backwards.

Is art the result of dissatisfaction with reality? or is it the expression of gratitude for happiness experienced?

In the first case, it is romanticism; in the second, it is glorification and dithyramb (in short, apotheosis art):

The Nihilism of artists.—

Nature is cruel in her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises.

We are hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature moves our senses and our imagination, where we have nothing to love, where we are not reminded of the moral semblances and delicacies of this northern nature; and the same applies to the arts.

We prefer that which no longer reminds us of good and evil. Our moral sensibility and tenderness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and forces. Life without goodness.

Great well-being arises from contemplating Nature's indifference to good and evil.

No justice in history, no goodness in Nature.

Finally, the art of terrible natures, in so far as it may excite the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and exhausted as a stimulus: this is now taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to Wagner's art.

A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power is the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable character of things, and whether he is in any need of a faith at the end.

This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter insists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance.

The contrast of a true and of an apparent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense.

A world, thus constituted is the true world.

We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth—that is to say, in order to live.... That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.

A world, thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth—that is to say, in order to live....

That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.

Metaphysics, morality, religion, science, in this book, all these things are regarded merely as different forms of falsehood: by means of them we are led to believe in life. "Life, must inspire confidence"; the task which this imposes upon us is enormous.

The fact that the character of existence is misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest secret motive behind everything relating to virtue, science, piety, and art.

To be blind to many things, to see many things falsely, to fancy many things: Oh, how clever man has been in those circumstances in which he believed he was anything but clever!

Love, enthusiasm, "God"—are but subtle forms of ultimate Self-deception; they are but seductions to life and to the belief in life! In those moments when man was deceived, when he had befooled himself and when he believed in life:

... Man had once more become master of "matter,"—master of truth! ... And whenever man rejoices it is always in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power....

Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life.

Art is the only superior counter-agent to all will to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti-Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic force.

Happiness is likewise conceived as more primeval than pain: and pain is considered as conditioned, as a consequence Of the will to happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i.e. to creating; in creating, however, destruction is included).

The highest state of Yea-saying to existence is conceived as one from which the greatest pain may not be excluded: the tragico-Dionysian state.

In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which is more "divine" than truth: Art.

How would it be possible for a stronger race to be bred from him?—Such a race as would have a classical taste?

The classical taste: this is the will to simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage for psychological nakedness (simplification is the outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing happiness as well as nakedness to become visible is a consequence of the will to the terrible ...).

In order to fight one's way out of that chaos, and up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is necessary: a man should have to choose between either going to the dogs or prevailing.

The Church has anathematised German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk or a priest had the right to say a word as to what a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan is sent to hell: this is very naïf.

Has anybody ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking in heaven? ...

This is only a hint to the girls, as to where they may best find salvation.

Ordinary men may only represent a small corner and nook of this natural character; they perish the moment the multifariousness of the elements composing them, and the tension between their antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the prerequisite for greatness in man.

That man should become better and at the same time more evil, is my formula for this inevitable fact.

The majority of people are only piecemeal and fragmentary examples of man: only when all these creatures are jumbled together does one whole man arise Whole ages and whole peoples in this sense, have a fragmentary character about them;

to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness.

What is it that one learns in a hard school?—to obey and to command.

We should repudiate merit—and do only that which stands above all praise and above all understanding.

to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What is it that one learns in a hard school?—to obey and to command.

We should repudiate merit—and do only that which stands above all praise and above all understanding.

The new forms of morality:—

By feasts we understand: pride, high-spirits, exuberance; scorn of all kinds of seriousness and Philistinism; a divine saying of Yea to one's self, as the result of physical plenitude and perfection—all states to which the Christian cannot honestly say Yea.

A feast is a pagan thing par excellence.

(5) The courage of ones own nature: dressing-up in morality,—To be able to call one's passions good without the help of a moral formula:

A healthy and vigorous little boy will look up sarcastically if he be asked: "Wilt thou become virtuous?"—but he immediately becomes eager if he be asked: "Wilt thou become stronger than thy comrades?"

How does one become stronger?—By deciding slowly; and by holding firmly to the decision once it is made.

Everything else follows of itself. Spontaneous and changeable natures: both species of the weak. We must not confound ourselves with them; we must feel distance—betimes!

What expedients and what virtues do the unarmed and the undefended require in order to survive—and even to conquer?

What will become of a man who no longer has any reasons for either defence or attack? What will remain of his passions when he has lost those which form his defence and his weapons?

A marginal note to a niaiserie anglaise: "Do not to others that which you would not that they should do unto you." This stands for wisdom; this stands for prudence; this stands as the very basis of morality as "a golden maxim."

A man does not strive after "happiness"; one must be an Englishman to be able to believe that a man is always seeking his own advantage.

Our desires long to violate things with passion—their overflowing strength seeks obstacles.

All passions are generally useful, some directly, others indirectly; in regard to utility it is absolutely impossible to fix upon any gradation of values,—however certainly the forces of nature in general may be regarded as good (i.e.

In short, what we require is to dominate the passions and not to weaken or to extirpate them!—The greater the dominating power of the will, the greater the freedom that may be given to the passions.

The "great man" is so, owing to the free scope which he gives to his desires, and to the still greater power which knows how to enlist these magnificent monsters into its service.

The "good man" in every stage of civilisation is at one and the same time the least dangerous and the most useful: a sort of medium;

a sort of medium; the idea formed of such a man by the common mind is that he is some one whom one has no reason to fear, but whom one must not therefore despise.

Education: essentially a means of ruining exceptions in favour of the rule. Culture: essentially the means of directing taste against the exceptions in favour of the mediocre.

Only when a culture can dispose of an overflow of force, is it capable of being a hothouse for the luxurious culture of the exception, of the experiment, of the danger, of the nuance: this is the tendency of every aristocratic culture.

...

The strongest test of character is to resist being ruined by the seductiveness of goodness.

Goodness must be regarded as a luxury, as a refinement, as a vice.

"Thou shalt"—unconditional obedience in Stoics, in Christian and Arabian Orders, in Kant's philosophy (it is immaterial whether this obedience is shown to a superior or to a concept).

Higher than "Thou shalt" stands "I will" (the heroes); higher than "I will" stands "I am" (the gods of the Greeks).

Barbarian gods express nothing of the pleasure of restraint,—they are neither simple, nor light-hearted, nor moderate.

Barbarian gods express nothing of the pleasure of restraint,—they are neither simple, nor light-hearted, nor moderate.

The essence of our gardens and palaces (and to the same extent the essence of all yearning after riches) is the desire to rid the eye of disorder and vulgarity, and to build a home for our soul's nobility.

The majority of people certainly believe that they will develop higher natures when those beautiful and peaceful things have operated upon them: hence the exodus to Italy, hence all travelling, etc., and all reading and visits to theatres.

—We are always disguised: the higher a man's nature the more is he in need of remaining incognito.

If there be a God, then out of sheer decency He ought only to show Himself on earth in the form of a man.

—We are capable of otium, of the unconditional conviction that although a handicraft does not shame one in any sense, it certainly reduces one's rank.

—We collect precious things, the needs of higher and fastidious souls; we wish to possess nothing in common.

We want to have our own books, our own landscapes.

—We protest against evil and fine experiences, and take care not to generalise too quickly. The individual case: how ironically we regard it when it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule!

—We protest against evil and fine experiences, and take care not to generalise too quickly.

The individual case: how ironically we regard it when it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule!

—We love that which is naïf, and naïf people, but as spectators and higher creatures; we think Faust is just as simple as his Margaret.

The misunderstanding of love.

There is a slavish love which subordinates itself and gives itself away—which idealises and deceives itself; there is a divine species of love which despises and loves at the same time, and which remodels and elevates the thing it loves.

The object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which can yet avoid going to ruin at …

It is because the great man has cost so much, and not because he stands there as a miracle, as a gift from heaven, or as an accident, that he became great: "Heredity" is a false notion.

A man's ancestors have always paid the price of what he is.

The danger of modesty. To adapt ourselves too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness;

a bodily and spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will consequently insist! As they will need one so badly, they will have it.

We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts: greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either.

From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate death with those interests for which we are fighting—that makes us venerable; (2) we must learn to sacrifice numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men;

they are in need of different means for enduring life than other men; for they suffer in a different way (that is to say, just as much from the depth of their contempt of man as from their love of man).—

The animal which suffered most on earth discovered for itself —laughter.

Concerning the misunderstanding of "cheerfulness." —It is a temporary relief from long tension; it is the wantonness, the Saturnalia of a spirit, which is consecrating and preparing itself for long and terrible resolutions. The "fool" in the form of "science."

perhaps every man who has divined so much must go to ruin: but he who has seen the highest man must do all he can to make him possible.

Fundamental thought: we must make the future the standard of all our valuations—and not seek the laws for our conduct behind us.

Not "mankind," but Superman is the goal!

Is one in search of resistance, or is one evading it? Is one imperfect owing to one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is it one's nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail of garish parts?

Is one proud enough not to feel ashamed even of one's vanity?

Is one still able to feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming rare; formerly conscience had to bite too often: it is as if it now no longer had enough teeth to do so)? Is one still capable of a "duty"?

... Is one genuine or only an actor; is one genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of an actor? is one a representative or the creature represented?

Is one a personality or merely a rendezvous of personalities?

... Is one ill from a disease or from surplus health? Does one lead as a shepherd, or as an "exception" (third alternative: as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can one play the clown?

Is one still capable of a "duty"? (there are some people who would lose the whole joy of their lives if they were deprived of their duty—this holds good especially of feminine creatures, who are born subjects).

Supposing our common comprehension of the universe were a misunderstanding, would it be possible to conceive of a form of perfection, within the limits of which even such a misunderstanding as this could be sanctioned?

The concept of a new form of perfection: that which does not correspond to our logic, to our "beauty," to our "good," to our "truth," might be perfect in a higher sense even than our ideal is.

we have transferred our seriousness to other things; all those things which have been despised and laid aside as base by all ages, we regard as important—on the other hand, we surrender "fine feelings" at a cheap rate.

Could any aberration be more dangerous than the contempt of the body? As if all intellectuality were not thereby condemned to become morbid, and to take refuge in the vapeurs of "idealism"!

Nothing that has been thought out by Christians and idealists holds water: we are more radical. We have discovered the "smallest world" everywhere as the most decisive.

Now, the history of every culture shows a diminution of this fear of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected.

Culture means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire the power of forestalling events, to acquire a belief in necessity.

With the growth of culture, man is able to dispense with that primitive form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that "justification of evil." Now he wages war against "evil,"—he gets rid of it.

Pleasure appears with the feeling of power.

Happiness means that the consciousness of power and triumph has begun to prevail.

Progress is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise great will-power, everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger.

The purpose of culture would have us enlist everything terrible, step by step and experimentally, into its service; but before it is strong enough for this it must combat, moderate, mask, and even curse everything terrible.

Wherever a culture points to anything as evil, it betrays its fear and therefore weakness.

Thesis: everything good is the evil of yore which has been rendered serviceable. Standard:

according to him the kingdom of evil is the largest. The lowest man will see the kingdom of evil (i.e. that which is forbidden him and which is hostile to him) everywhere.

It is not a fact that "happiness follows virtue"—but it is the mighty man who first declares his happy state to be virtue.

Evil actions belong to the mighty and the virtuous: bad and base actions belong to the subjected.

I was the first to discover the tragic. Thanks to their superficiality in ethics, the Greeks misunderstood it. Resignation is not the lesson of tragedy, but only the misunderstanding of it! The yearning for nonentity is the denial of tragic wisdom, its opposite!

A rich and powerful soul not only gets over painful and even terrible losses, deprivations, robberies, and insults: it actually leaves such dark infernos in possession of still greater plenitude and power; and, what is most important of all, in possession of an increased blissfulness in love.

I believe that he who has divined something of the most fundamental conditions of love, will understand Dante for having written over the door of his Inferno: "I also am the creation of eternal love."

Veritably to have overcome pessimism, and, as the result thereof, to have acquired the eyes of a Goethe—full of love and goodwill.

The first question is by no means whether we are satisfied with ourselves; but whether we are satisfied with anything at all.

Granting that we should say yea to any single moment, we have then affirmed not only ourselves, but the whole of existence. For nothing stands by itself, either in us or in other things:

"From the world that is known to us quite a different God would be demonstrable, such a one as would certainly not be humanitarian"—and, in a word, you cling fast to your God, and invent a world for Him which is unknown to us.

Let us banish the highest good from our concept of God: it is unworthy of a God.

Let us likewise banish the highest wisdom: it is the vanity of philosophers who have perpetrated the absurdity of a God who is a monster of wisdom: the idea was to make Him as like them as possible. No!

... I would not doubt that there are several kinds of gods.... Some are not wanting which one could not possibly imagine without a certain halcyonic calm and levity....

Light feet perhaps belong to the concept "God".

Is it necessary to explain that a God knows how to hold Himself preferably outside all Philistine and rationalist circles? also (between ourselves) beyond good and evil?

I should not like to undervalue the amiable virtues; but greatness of soul is not compatible with them.

Even in the arts, grand style excludes all merely pleasing qualities.

In times of painful tension and vulnerability, choose war. War hardens and develops muscle.

In times of painful tension and vulnerability, choose war. War hardens and develops muscle.

Those who have been deeply wounded have the Olympian laughter; a man only has what he needs.

It has now already lasted ten years: no sound any longer reaches me—a land without rain. A man must have a vast amount of humanity at his disposal in order not to pine away in such drought.[8]

It would rather attain to the very reverse—to a Dionysian affirmation of the world, as it is, without subtraction, exception, or choice—it would have eternal circular motion: the same things, the same reasoning, and the same illogical concatenation.

The highest state to which a philosopher can attain: to maintain a Dionysian attitude to Life—my formula for this is amor fati.

To this end we must not only consider those aspects of life which have been denied hitherto, as:

… and deception, great and joyful gratitude to Life and its typical conditions—these things are essential to all paganism, and it has a good conscience on its side.—That which is hostile to Nature (already in Greek antiquity) combats paganism in the form of morality and dialectics.

An anti-metaphysical view of the world—yes, but an artistic one.

Apollo's misapprehension: the eternity of beautiful forms, the aristocratic prescription, "Thus shall it ever be!"

Dionysus. Sensuality and cruelty.

The perishable nature of existence might be interpreted as the joy of procreative and destructive force, as unremitting creation.

The word "Dionysian" expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring above personality, the common-place, society, reality, and above the abyss of the ephemeral, the passionately painful sensation of superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions;