Twilight of the Idols

"Moral judgments, like religious ones, belong to a stage of ignorance at which the very concept of the real, and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking."

"Weder Manu, noch Plato, noch Confucius, noch die jüdischen und christlichen Lehrer haben je an ihrem Recht zur Lüge gezweifelt."

"Alle Mittel, wodurch bisher die Menschheit moralisch gemacht werden sollte, waren von Grund aus unmoralisch."

"Plato … says … that there would be no Platonic philosophy at all if there were not such beautiful youths in Athens."

"Wenn man den christlichen Glauben aufgiebt, zieht man sich damit das Recht zur christlichen Moral unter den Füßen weg."

"Wenn thatsächlich die Engländer glauben, sie wüßten von sich aus, „intuitiv”, was gut und böse ist, wenn sie folglich vermeinen, das Christenthum als Garantie der Moral nicht mehr nöthig zu haben, so ist dies selbst bloß die Folge der Herrschaft des christlichen Werthurtheils und ein Ausdruck von der Stärke und Tiefe diesen Herrschaft: sodaß der Ursprung der englischen Moral vergessen worden ist, sodaß das Sehr-Bedingte ihres Rechts auf Dasein nicht mehr empfunden wird."

"In art, man enjoys himself as perfection."

"The other thing I do not like to hear is the notorious “and” …"

"How does one compromise oneself today? If one is consistent. If one proceeds in a straight line. If one is not ambiguous enough to permit five conflicting interpretations. If one is genuine."

"Plato goes further. He says with an innocence possible only for a Greek, not a “Christian,” that there would be no Platonic philosophy at all if there were not such beautiful youths in Athens: it is only their sight that transposes the philosopher’s soul into an erotic trance, leaving it no peace until it lowers the seed of all exalted things into such beautiful soil."

"“What is the task of all higher education?” To turn men into machines. “What are the means?” Man must learn to be bored. “How is that accomplished?” “By means of the concept of duty.”"

"Nothing is more distasteful to true philosophers than man when he beings to wish. If they see man only at his deeds, if they see this bravest, craftiest, and most enduring of animals, even inextricably entangled in disaster, how admirable he then appears to them. They even encourage him. But true philosophers despise the man who wishes, as also the desirable man, and all the desiderata and ideals of man in general … he finds only nonentity behind human ideals, or, not even nonentity but vileness, absurdity, sickness, cowardice, fatigue, … How is it that man, who as a reality is so estimable, ceases from deserving respect the moment he begins to desire. Must he pay for being so perfect as a reality? Must he make up for his deeds, for the tension of spirit and will which underlies all his deeds, by an eclipse of his power in matters of the imagination, and in absurdity. … That which justifies man is his reality. It will justify him to all eternity. How much more valuable is a real man than any other man who is merely the phantom desires, of dreams …than any kind of ideal man."

"Self-interest is worth as much as the person who has it."

"The single one, the “individual,” as hitherto understood by the people and the philosophers alike, is an error after all: he is nothing by himself, no atom, no “link in the chain,” nothing merely inherited from former times; he is the whole single line of humanity up to himself."

"The way that the “single one” or the “individual,” has been hitherto understood, by the people and the philosophers alike, is an error. He is not a thing by himself, not an atom, not a “link in the chain,” not a thing merely inherited from former times. He represents the whole single line of humanity up to himself."

"The anarchist, as the mouthpiece of the declining strata of society, demands with a fine indignation what is “right,” “justice,” and “equal rights,” … the “fine indignation” itself soothes him; it is a pleasure for all wretched devils to scold: it gives a slight but intoxicating sense of power. Even plaintiveness and complaining can give life a charm."

"Complaining is never any good: it stems from weakness. Whether one charges one’s misfortune to others or to oneself—the socialist does the former; the Christian, for example, the latter—really makes no difference. The common and, let us add, the unworthy thing is that it is supposed to be somebody’s fault that one is suffering; in short, that the sufferer prescribes the honey of revenge for himself against his suffering. The objects of this need for revenge, as a need for pleasure, are mere occasions: everywhere the sufferer finds occasions for satisfying his little revenge."

"When the anarchist, as the mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in splendid indignation for “right,” “justice,” “equal rights,” he is only groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot understand why he actually suffers, what his poverty consists of: the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in him. Someone must be responsible for him being so ill at ease. His splendid indignation alone relieves him somewhat. It is a pleasure for all poor devils to grumble. It gives them a little intoxicating sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one bewails one’s lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account alone one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in every lamentation. One casts one’s affections, and, under certain circumstances, even one’s baseness, in the teeth of those who are different, as if their condition were an injustice and iniquitous privilege."

"To bewail one’s lot is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether one ascribes one’s afflictions to others or to one’s self, it is all the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody must be to blame if one suffers—in short, that the sufferer drugs himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish."

"Instinctively to choose what is harmful for oneself, to feel attracted by “disinterested” motives, that is virtually the formula of decadence. “Not to seek one’s own advantage”—that is merely the moral fig leaf for quite a different, namely, a physiological, state of affairs: “I no longer know how to find my own advantage.” Disintegration of the instincts!"

"Instead of saying naively, “I am no longer worth anything,” the moral lie in the mouth of the decadent says, “Nothing is worth anything, life is not worth anything.”"

"Finally, some advice for our dear pessimists and other decadents. It is not in our hands to prevent our birth; but we can correct this mistake …one must advance a step further in its logic and not only negate life with “will and representation,” as Schopenhauer did—one must first of all negate Schopenhauer."

"If one wants an end, one must also want the means: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool if one educates them to be masters."

"Philosophers are merely another kind of saint, and their whole craft is such that they admit only certain truths—namely, those for the sake of which their craft is accorded public sanction."

"The criminal type is the type of the strong human being under unfavorable circumstances: a strong human being made sick."

"Whoever must do secretly, with long suspense, caution, and cunning, what he can do best and would like most to do, becomes anemic; and because he always harvests only danger, persecution, and calamity from his instincts, his attitude to these instincts is reversed too"

"It is society, our tame, mediocre, emasculated society, in which a natural human being … necessarily degenerates into a criminal."

"Let us generalize the case of the criminal: let us think of men so constituted that for one reason or another, they lack public approval and know that they are not felt to be beneficent or useful—that chandala feeling that one is not considered equal, but an outcast, unworthy, contaminating. All men so constituted have a subterranean hue to their thoughts and actions; everything about them becomes paler than in those whose existence is touched by daylight. Yet almost all forms of existence which we consider distinguished today once lived in this half tomblike atmosphere: the scientific character, the artist, the genius, the free spirit, the actor, the merchant, the great discoverer. … All innovators of the spirit must for a time bear the pallid and fatal mark of the chandala on their foreheads—not because they are considered that way by others, but because they themselves feel the terrible chasm which separates them from everything that is customary or reputable. Almost every genius knows, as one stage of his development, the “Catilinarian existence”—a feeling of hatred, revenge, and rebellion against everything which already is, which no longer becomes ... Catiline—the form of pre-existence of every Caesar.—"

"In Athens, in the time of Cicero (who expresses his surprise about this), the men and youths were far superior in beauty to the women. But what work and exertion in the service of beauty had the male sex there imposed on itself for centuries!— For one should make no mistake about the method in this case: a breeding of feelings and thoughts alone is almost nothing (—this is the great misunderstanding underlying German education, which is wholly illusory): one must first persuade the body."

"Strict perseverance in significant and exquisite gestures together with the obligation to live only with people who do not “let themselves go”—that is quite enough for one to become significant and exquisite…"

"Supreme rule of conduct: before oneself too, one must not “let oneself go.”"

"It is decisive for the lot of a people and of humanity that culture should begin in the right place—not in the “soul” (as was the fateful superstition of the priests and half-priests): the right place is the body, the gesture, the diet, physiology; the rest follows from that ... Therefore the Greeks remain the first cultural event in history—they knew, they did, what was needed; and Christianity, which despised the body, has been the greatest misfortune of humanity so far."

"The beauty of a race or family, their grace and graciousness in all gestures, is won by work: like genius, it is the end result of the accumulated work of generations. One must have made great sacrifices to good taste… one must have preferred beauty to advantage, habit, opinion and inertia."

"It is decisive … for humanity that culture should begin in the right place—not in the “soul”: … the right place is the body, the gesture, the diet, physiology; the rest follows from that. Therefore the Greeks remain the first cultural event in history: the knew, they did, what was needed; and Christianity, which despised the body, has been the greatest misfortune to humanity so far."

"Plato is a coward before reality, consequently he flees into the ideal"

"[I praise] the unconditional will to not deceive oneself and to see reason in reality—not in “reason,” still less in “morality.”"

"I know no higher symbolism than this Greek symbolism of the Dionysian festivals. Here the most profound instinct of life, that directed toward the future of life, the eternity of life, is experienced religiously—and the way to life, procreation, as the holy way. It was Christianity, with its ressentiment against life at the bottom of its heart, which first made something unclean of sexuality: it threw filth on the origin, on the presupposition of our life."

"For the Greeks the sexual symbol was therefore the venerable symbol par excellence, the real profundity in the whole of ancient piety. Every single element in the act of procreation, of pregnancy, and of birth aroused the highest and most solemn feelings."

"All becoming and growing—all that guarantees a future—involves pain."

"Saying Yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems, the will to life rejoicing over its own inexhaustibility even in the very sacrifice of its highest types—that is what I called Dionysian."

"It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book."

"The criminal type is the strong type under unfavorable conditions, a strong man rendered sickly. What he lacks is the jungle, a certain freer and more dangerous form of nature and existence where all that serves as arms and armor—in the strong man’s instinctive view—is his by right. His virtues society has prohibited; the liveliest impulses he has borne within him are quickly entangled with the crushing emotions of suspicion, fear and ignominy."

"Was kann allein unsre Lehre sein?—Daß niemand dem Menschen seine Eigenschaften giebt, weder Gott, noch die Gesellschaft, noch seine Eltern und Vorfahren, noch er selbst ... Niemand ist dafür verantwortlich, daß er überhaupt da ist, daß er so und so beschaffen ist, daß er unter diesen Umständen in dieser Umgebung ist. Die Fatalität seines Wesens ist nicht herauszulösen aus der Fatalität alles dessen, was war und sein wird ... Man ist notwendig, man ist ein Stück Verhängnis, man gehört zum Ganzen, man ist im Ganzen,—es gibt nichts, was unser Sein richten, messen, vergleichen, verurteilen könnte, denn das hieße, das Ganze richten, messen, vergleichen, verurteilen ... Aber es gibt nichts außer dem Ganzen! . . .—Damit erst ist die Unschuld des Werdens wieder hergestellt"