Misinterpreted and abused, the infamy of Nietzsche needs no further comment. Even Nietzsche himself has foreseen what might become of his theories when he dedicated the book to all and none. Yet his mysterious aphorisms completely altered the course of intellectual current, and the thoughts that he provoked are still radical and surprising, not to mention relevant.

Although known best by many to have authored the Will to Power, the sagacity that Nietzsche possessed culminates in its fullest grandeur in this volume, as he teases out the truth with ironic tone and paradoxical phrases. In fact, one of the things which makes Nietzsche so enigmatic is that he seems to have been in full grasp of the muddy contours of the unconscious mind – an entity of instincts that pits the individual will against the society, and him/herself – even before the advent of psychology.

As has been done many times before (or exactly because of it), the temptation remains to cast him as a mad man (which is in fact often times done as fragments of his arguments get misappropriated by vile historical figures). But his core message here is textually unambiguous: in celebration of life and all its contradictions, he opposed any self-professed-divine, parochial doctrines and sought the way of the supreme iconoclast — the Übermensch.