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The Gay Science

Friedrich Nietzsche,

Walter Kaufmann (Translator)

4.26 · Rating details · 13,704 ratings · 507 reviews

"[This book] mirrors all of Nietzsche's thought and could be related in hundreds of ways to his other books, his notes, and his letters. And yet it is complete in itself. For it is a work of art." —Walter Kaufmann in the Introduction

Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God—to which a large p ...more

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Mass Market Paperback, Vintage Books, 396 pages

Published January 12th 1974 by Random House (first published April 1st 1882)

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Jan 19, 2011 Zawn V rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy

If you read Nietzsche while not in the midst of some variety of emo existential crisis, Nietzsche is hilarious and insightful. If, however, you choose to read Nietzsche in high school in order to be counter-culture, odds are good Nietzsche will temporarily turn you into a horrible, pompous ass. Nietzsche is the first philosopher I ever read; I stole The Gay Science from my cousin's book shelf when I was nine because I wanted to read "what smart people read." Ever since then, Nietzsche and I have ...more

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Oct 20, 2013 Roy Lotz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: footnotes-to-plato, germanophilia, prose-style

The more mistrust, the more philosophy.

How to review Nietzsche? His writing is so rich, so overabundant, so overflowing, that evaluating his works is like trying to drink up a waterfall. I cannot even decide whether Nietzsche was a philosopher, or something else. Perhaps he can be better described as an essayist, a poet, a sage, a neurotic, a raving madman, a prescient visionary? The title hardly matters, I suppose; although without some benchmark of comparison, I am left in the dark for a w ...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, classics, european, philosophy, german, non-fiction, 19th-century

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft = The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche
The Gay Science or The Joyful Wisdom is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, in 1887. This substantial expansion includes a fifth book and an appendix of songs. It was noted by Nietzsche to be "the most personal of all [his] books", and contains the greatest number of poems in any of his p ...more

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Dec 19, 2013 David marked it as eventually-read

NOT GAY ENOUGH.

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Jun 13, 2010 Jonfaith rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Seemita Pooja

Recommended to Jonfaith by: see

Shelves: theory

For believe me! — the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into uncharted seas! Live at war with your peers and yourselves! Be robbers and conquerors as long as you cannot be rulers and possessors, you seekers of knowledge! Soon the age will be past when you could be content to live hidden in forests like shy deer!

While this wasn't my point of departure into ...more

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Dec 28, 2010 Martin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: for-class-and-awesome, worth-re-reading

"What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you in your loneliest loneliness and say to you:
"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this m ...more

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Apr 10, 2020 Prickle added it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, penguin

Perhaps one of the greatest passages I encountered here has the unconventional form of a short parable, or "psychologist's tale" that almost does more in two paragraphs than an entire novella, and reminds me much of Johann Peter Hebel:

"In dealings with people who are ashamed of their feelings, one must be able to disguise one's own; for such people take a sudden antipathy to anyone who catches them in a moment of tenderness, or enthusiasm, or intemperate rage, as if their deepest secrets had bee Perhaps one of the greatest passages I encountered here has the unconventional form of a short parable, or "psychologist's tale" that almost does more in two paragraphs than an entire novella, and reminds me much of Johann Peter Hebel:

"In dealings with people who are ashamed of their feelings, one must be able to disguise one's own; for such people take a sudden antipathy to anyone who catches them in a moment of tenderness, or enthusiasm, or intemperate rage, as if their deepest secrets had been discovered. If one wants to do them a kindness in such moments one should make them laugh, and utter some cold, cruel witticism - then their heart turns to ice, and they regain self-possession. But I am giving you the moral before the story.

There was a time in our lives when we had grown so close to one another in friendship and brotherhood that nothing seemed to stand between us except this little footbridge. Just as you were about to step upon it, I asked you: 'Do you want to cross this bridge to me?' But then you no longer wanted to, and when I asked you again, you fell silent. Since then mountains and torrents and all that divides and estranges have come between us, and even if we wanted to be reconciled with one another, it was no longer possible. However, when you think back to that little footbridge, you are at a loss for words - but filled with tears and wonder."

Much of Nietzsche's aphorisms (or rather passages that implicitly make up a whole) here take on a poetic form that are rhythmic and conversational without completely jumping the ship of non-fiction like Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and in this style The Joyous Science appear wholly unique and vivifying to a modern weary and logical mind in what is otherwise an ocean of grays and blues in writing. Take it from the author himself, however:

"It is noteworthy that the great masters of prose have almost always been poets, either openly, or secretly for their own private enjoyment; and truly, good prose is written only in light of poetry! For prose is the result of an uninterrupted, polite war with poetry; all its charm consists in the fact that poetry is constantly avoided and contradicted; every abstraction wishes to be presented as a piece of roguishness against poetry and with mocking voice; all dryness and coolness is supposed to drive the lovely goddess to lovely despair; often there are momentary compromises and reconciliations between the two, and then a sudden rebound into laughter; often the curtain is drawn back and harsh light let in just when the goddess was enjoying her twilights and dull colours; often her words are taken from her mouth and sung to a melody which makes her hold her delicate hands over her delicate ears - and so there are a thousand pleasures to this war, the defeats very much included, of which the unpoetic, the so-called prose writers, know nothing - which is why they write and speak only bad prose!"

Now that I have been so soundly trounced, and seeing that against my better judgement I have unwittingly mentioned Hebel above without sparing him a single thought for almost exactly a year until now, I wonder if I might better occupy my time Walter Benjamin-like with constructing my reviews solely out of quotations from now on. ...more

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Jul 09, 2008 Summer rated it it was amazing

Epic Nietzsche. My favorite Nietzsche text (and Nietzsche is my most favorite thinking creature of all time, so this means a lot) - somehow managing to be provocative, meditative, accessible, and entertaining in one stroke! One of those rare books that you can actually pick up, flip to any page, and read, without wondering all that much about what came before. I utilized many ideas presented in this book as jumping off points in my master's thesis, and were it not for the constrictions of time, ...more

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Jul 25, 2018 Jack rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy-theory-psychoanalysis, 19th-century, europe

384.

Having finished the book, the reader had no choice but to read himself. It was not a heroic story, nor a moral one - indeed, he scarcely understood the author's intent in various chapters. Its ending was implicit, if unwritten, yet the reader did not wish to imagine exactly what it would be. Oftentimes it was tedious, not worth reading, and he continued partially from spite, for he did not put a book down easily, and partially from a deeper sense he could not ascribe words to; a vibrancy, so ...more

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Oct 22, 2017 Karl Hallbjörnsson rated it it was amazing

Best Nietzsche I've read so far. Kaufmann's annotation is extremely informative, insightful and at times quite hilarious. Onwards to Zarathustra, then!

Edit: been reading it again this year. I'm convinced that this is N's singular best work. A real masterpiece. ...more

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Sep 18, 2012 Marts (Thinker) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry, philosophy

The Joyful Wisdom or the Gay Science, is to me, a bit different from the other Nietzsche books I've read. The general philosophies of the writer are present yet the volume creates in the reader a sense of power, fulfilment, achievement... Upon all he postulates are reasons to overcome such and conquer.

Here he also presents his philosophy, 'God is Dead', as stated in section 108:
After Buddha was dead, people
showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a
cave,—an immense frightful shadow. God is d ...more

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Dec 12, 2018 P rated it it was amazing

The Gay Science § 369:
Consider a continually creative person, a ‘mother’ type in the grand sense, one who knows and hears nothing any more except about the pregnancies and deliveries of his spirit, one who simply lacks the time to reflect on himself and his work and to make comparisons, one who no longer has any desire to assert his taste and who simply forgets it, without caring in the least whether it still stands, or lies, or falls – such a person might perhaps eventually produce works that f The Gay Science § 369:
Consider a continually creative person, a ‘mother’ type in the grand sense, one who knows and hears nothing any more except about the pregnancies and deliveries of his spirit, one who simply lacks the time to reflect on himself and his work and to make comparisons, one who no longer has any desire to assert his taste and who simply forgets it, without caring in the least whether it still stands, or lies, or falls – such a person might perhaps eventually produce works that far excel his own judgment, so that he utters stupidities about them and himself – utters them and believes them.

--

Ah yes, Nietzsche, the Great Immoralist. Reading his Genealogy as a bloodshot-eyed college freshman was a formative experience I remember fondly. It bolstered my adolescent aversion to Christianity: Nietzsche gave voice to what I thought I had always suspected: the priests and religious I had grown up with were peddlers of slave ethics! Weakness! Conformity! Metaphysical deception! Finally, I had found an intellectual juggernaut to put in my corner against the religious masses.

Except that I didn’t, right? Semesters passed. I started taking upper-level history and philosophy courses. I learned a bit about what scholars do and even thought I wanted to be one. Nietzsche doesn’t argue in the traditional philosophical sense. He doesn’t provide footnotes pointing to verifiable historical events. As I used him in debates and papers, I found that I had to do most of the heavy lifting: arguments needed developing, abstract theories of history needed to come down to earth, as it were. And so I adored Nietzsche, but was too lazy to defend or develop him. And so I learned I didn’t want to do what scholars do.

And slowly I realized something else about Nietzsche: for all his outspoken immoralism and distaste for Virtue, there are nonetheless virtues he values: beauty, valor, nobility, skepticism, chaos, violence. As my education progressed, I thought and read a lot about the problem of universals, and came to reject Nietzsche’s metaphysics (or lack thereof) and epistemology on realist grounds (coincidentally, rejecting nominalism is in part why I returned to the Church, or at least became increasingly sympathetic to its claims).

Fast-forward a few years. I’ve been reading Die fröliche Wissenschaft in the poopatorium. How does one summarize, let alone “rate”, such a momentous, intimate, brazenly self-contradictory work? At the very least it’s helpful to get at what is meant by gay science: Nietzsche wishes to eradicate the grave solemnity that too often characterizes intellectual pursuits. He laughs in the face of knowledge and virtue and sin. He laughs at the idea that we think we can systematically know anything at all – about the lowest things (e.g. the nature of cause and effect, the very foundation of science), or the highest (God, metaphysics, morality). He’s no Socrates, though, at least not Plato’s Socrates – it’s a tragedy the Greeks came to exalt Reason while reviling experience and emotion.

There’s so much here to chew on. Nietzsche’s by turns mad and brilliant and wise and wrong. Maybe I’ll come back to it, but for now, much like the madman himself, I’ll leave this review like a cold bath: quickly in and quickly out again. ...more

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Jan 11, 2017 Miquixote rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: set-in-germany, german, philosophy, poetry, science, religion, 1-google-scholar, 0-8-popular-acclaim

One of the great philosophical works. Do yourself a favor and realize right off the bat that it's quite unimportant whether you agree with him or not. He will challenge you and he will get you thinking.

Nietzsche can certainly be seen as too individualistic, too violent, too aristocratic, too condescending of democratic principles, too disrespectful of the little people, and only respectful of the individual 's will to power. That is his strength and his weakness.

Should we write him off as so ma ...more

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Mar 26, 2014 Jonathan Terrington rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy, non-fiction, historical, university, classic-literature, classics-challenge-3

So far in my philosophical venture into the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, I have read both this work and his Beyond Good and Evil. However, while I gave Beyond Good and Evil 3 stars, I feel that this is a better work academically and so give it the higher 4 star rating. In this The Gay Science, many of Nietzsche's key ideas come together in a much clearer manner, and it is easier to understand his views on concepts I feel he lacks more ignorance (religions for instance).

The title of this work st
So far in my philosophical venture into the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, I have read both this work and his Beyond Good and Evil. However, while I gave Beyond Good and Evil 3 stars, I feel that this is a better work academically and so give it the higher 4 star rating. In this The Gay Science, many of Nietzsche's key ideas come together in a much clearer manner, and it is easier to understand his views on concepts I feel he lacks more ignorance (religions for instance).

The title of this work stems from the more traditional meaning of 'gay' - that is for it to purely mean 'happy'. In other words this is Nietzsche's examination at times of how science and rationality has come to be considered an ultimately grave and serious task when he believes it should be a happy task or something to delight in understanding.

One thing that I have discovered through reading Nietzsche is that he seems to be someone who has been misinterpreted at times. His statement that 'God is dead', for instance, is a reflection on the fact that in the past Europe had a universal belief in God and now in the current age many people no longer believe in God. His 'will to power' quote was more about the concept of self-determination rather than a concept of war and conquering: the concept that 'what a man can be a man should be.' And further it has often been said that Nietzsche was a nihilist, an Anti-Semitic and a misogynist. The first two can be disproved relatively easily in that in his writings Nietzsche opposes nihilism and writes about humanity as a whole (abhorring racism). His writings on females are...less clear, but on the whole he shows that he respects women at the least.

Part of this misinterpretation is to do with the fact that his Nazi sympathising sister re-wrote his articles and notes after his death to side with Anti-Semitic views and potentially more misogynistic views. The other part, I believe, is due to the fact that Nietzsche does write at times in blindly contradictory ways. For instance his theory of 'perspectivism' is one which states that there are multiple perspectives which can be seen to be correct and that multiple perspectives should be examined on any issue - therefore creating a sense of how existentialism works for Nietzsche. However, Nietzsche outright makes a contradictory exception to this, claiming that the 'herd instinct' connected to already established views, is one to be avoided. He uses this to discredit established ways of thinking according to religions, apparently unaccepting of that fact that man could potentially set out to find the Christian God for him or herself, or that there could be a level of spirituality which supersedes established orders. Further, if we were to take Nietzsche to his absolute conclusion, then it would seem that anarchy should reign...

There is another reason why Nietzsche is so misunderstood, aside from his convoluted and intricate manner of writing. This is due to the fact that his 'theories' are made in the form of truth claims. Nietzsche comes across as extremely arrogant in his writing, though at times humility does seep back in, with his writing conveyed as fact, rather than thoughts and reflections upon different topics. This makes it hard for the critical reader to truly accept or fully respect Nietzsche, though he has many potent ideas to discuss.

Even from my own Christian perspective I accept that Nietzsche was partly right when talking about such ideas as 'God is dead' or the avoidance of following the 'herd instinct' in morality. Yet as I have said before, Nietzsche misses that Christianity could be about more than mere morality or power structures because he only sees the physical abuses of such systems and therefore rejects them entirely. I do believe that God has, sadly, come to appear as dead for much of humanity - though in particular areas his resurrection has become evident - yet I also believe that what Nietzsche cannot comprehend is the spiritual aspect of humanity and that is why religion to him must be entirely rejected. ...more

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Nov 10, 2011 Mike rated it it was amazing

Another book that doesn't need a review and probably shouldn't be reviewed by anyone today (one wonders if Nietzsche would look at the terrain of the world today and wonder if his "free spirits" and "philosophers the day after tomorrow" would ever arrive), but here it is! We didn't read this back in the seminar I took in college, focusing more on his other "major" works. But I think I like this one best of all, not only for its levity and joy, but because it contains kernels of all of his major ...more

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Oct 05, 2011 David rated it it was ok

Rather than laying out a point and following it with arguments and counter arguments, Nietzsche makes declarations about the world and leaves you to argue for or against him. Even though this book is full of intentional contradictions it does cause the reader to think more about the world around them. However it fails to make a point. Normal philosophy desires to find a conclusion, and from this conclusion the reader is left to think about what was said, but this book only says things to think a ...more

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Mar 07, 2013 John Hamer rated it it was amazing

I go back to this book again and again, but I've yet to plumb its depths or exhaust its riches. You don't read Nietzsche the way the pious read holy books; you read him the way tired undergraduates drink Red Bull. Reading Nietzsche is like taking a bolt of lightning to the head; it's like a bucket of ice cold water to the face first thing in the morning. Nietzsche forces you to wake up and think. He can make you mad sometimes. Really mad. He can make you laugh out loud. And he can make you cry. ...more

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Feb 22, 2008 Catherine rated it liked it

While certain parts of this book are overtly misogynistic and anti-Semitic, I appreciate some of his writings on artistic creation and seeking knowledge. The best part of my experience with this book was the looks I would get from other people while I was reading it on the train. People don't quite know what to do with someone who reads Nietzsche in his or her spare time. ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 Bogdan Raț rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I think this is the only place in Nietzche's work where he explicitly says "In my opinion..." or "I believe that..."
Really liked the tone and language he used here. I enjoyed some of his poems aswell. ...more

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Jul 10, 2013 Matt rated it liked it

Shelves: worldly-lit, wisdom-philosophical-investigatons

This is one of those very-hard-to-categorize books. Poor Fred really did go to the outer limits of what could be possible, what can be thought, how far humans could go morally, aesthetically, etc.

Forget the stoned, peach fuzz'd, wild-eyed undergrad or high school kid with bad breath who reads this stuff all day and thinks he's a nascent ubermensch.

Nietzsche's the real deal and this is one of the books that sort of shows him stretching himself as far as he can. It's actually almost kind of a ...more

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Jan 29, 2020 Kelsey Hennegen rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-phil, all-time-top

Often misread, surely even by me (at least at times), but what I get from this text is such hope for a new health, a new happiness, and a new love. The possibility to love one's fate -- not to endure life, but to affirm and celebrate it, to dance. We must learn to love, we must eschew conclusions and certainty, for "conclusions are consolations," and, rather, engage in perpetual experimentation and play. We can be the artists of our own life, creators.

I don't find an aggressive will to power he ...more

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Aug 26, 2020 ThereWillBeBooks rated it it was amazing

Shelves: philosophy

I’m a bit of a latecomer to Nietzsche and now, having finished an actual book of his, the thought that keeps coming to mind is: Nietzsche’s reputation has nearly eclipsed his work. I “knew” Nietzsche before I’d read anything that he wrote. I likely could have discussed him at length. I knew all about the Ubermensch and the God is dead stuff. I knew that he was a sort of proto Ayn Rand. All the flotsam that makes its way into the collective imagination after a century and a half of lingering in t ...more

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Aug 22, 2008 Erik Graff rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Erik by: no one

Shelves: philosophy

I read this after reading Zarathustra. This was a mistake as much of the philosophical content of Nietzsche's essay into scripture and prophecy is to be found more clearly stated in The Gay Science. ...more

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May 11, 2019 Shyam rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy

Why, then, have I never yet encountered anyone , not even in books, who approached morality in this personal way and who knew morality as a problem, and this problem as his own distress, torment, voluptuousness, and passion? It is clear that up to now, morality has been no problem at all but rather that on which, after all mistrust, discord, and contradiction, one could agree—the hallowed place of peace where thinkers took a rest from themselves, took a deep breath, and felt revived. I see no

Why, then, have I never yet encountered anyone , not even in books, who approached morality in this personal way and who knew morality as a problem, and this problem as his own distress, torment, voluptuousness, and passion? It is clear that up to now, morality has been no problem at all but rather that on which, after all mistrust, discord, and contradiction, one could agree—the hallowed place of peace where thinkers took a rest from themselves, took a deep breath, and felt revived. I see no one who has ventured a critique of moral valuations; I miss even the slightest attempts of scientific curiosity, of the coddled, experimental imagination of psychologists and historians that easily anticipates a problem and seizes it in flight without knowing what it has caught. (5.345)

The passion that overcomes the noble one is a singularity . . . the use of a rare and singular standard and almost a madness; the feeling of heat in things that feel cold to everyone else; a hitting upon the values for which the scale has not yet been invented. (1.55)
__________
One day, and probably soon, we will need some recognition of what is missing primarily in our big cities: quiet and wide, expansive places for reflection—places with long, high-celinged arcades for bas or all-too-sunny weather, where no shouts or noise from carriages can penetrate and where refined manners would prohibit even priests from praying aloud: a whole complex of buildings and sites that would give expression to the sublimity to contemplation and of stepping aside. (4.280)

. . . read the moral books of antiquity, e.g. those of Seneca or Epictetus . . . (3.122)

__________
One day, and probably soon, we will need some recognition of what is missing primarily in our big cities: quiet and wide, expansive places for reflection—places with long, high-celinged arcades for bas or all-too-sunny weather, where no shouts or noise from carriages can penetrate and where refined manners would prohibit even priests from praying aloud: a whole complex of buildings and sites that would give expression to the sublimity to contemplation and of stepping aside. (4.280)

Possession usually diminishes the possession. (1.14)

To grow tired of a possession is to grow tired of ourselves. (1.14)

The most industrious age—our own—doesn’t know how to make anything of all its industriousness except and money except still more money and still more industriousness; for more genius is required to spend than to acquire. (1.21)

One will recall that the emperor Augustus became indiscreet against himself with his last words: he let his mask fall for the first time when he made it clear that he had worms a mask and acted a comedy— he had played the father of the fatherland and the wisdom on the throne well enough to create the proper illusion. Plaudite amici, comoedia finita est! The thought of the dying Nero—quails artifex perero!—was also the thought of the dying Augustus: actor’s vanity! Actor’s prolixity! And truly the opposite of the dying Socrates! But Tiberius died silently, this most tormented of all self-tormentors—he was genuine and no actor! What might have passed through his mind at the end? Maybe this: ‘Life—that is a long death. What a fool I was to shorten so many lives! Was I made to be a benefactor? I should have given them eternal life: that way, I could have seen them die forever. (1.36)

Love forgives the beloved even his lust. (2.62)

Now there is certainly something to be said for the exception, provided it never wants to become the rule. (2.76)

Precisely to want to get away from usefulness for once—that is what has elevated humanity; that is what has inspired it to morality and art. (2.84)

Mystical explanations are considered deep; the truth is, they are not even shallow. (3.126)

. . . ready to burst into a hundredfold splendour of blossoms. (3.148)

Those who know they are deep strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem deep to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd takes everything whose ground it cannot see to be deep: it is so timid and so reluctant to go into the water. (3.173)

The most perfidious way of damaging a cause is deliberately to defend it with faulty arguments. (3.191)

With a very loud voice in one’s throat one is almost incapable of thinking subtle things. (3.216)

I do not love people who have to explode like bombs in order to have any effect whatsoever and in whose presence one is always in danger of suddenly losing one’s hearing—or more. (3.218)

Some reach their peak as characters, but their spirit is not adequate for this height, while with others it is the other way around. (3.235)

What we do is never understood but always merely praised and reproached. (3.264)

What is the seal of having become free?—No longer to be ashamed before oneself. (3.275)

To me the most intolerable, the truly terrible, would of course ba a life entirely without habits, a life that continually demanded improvisation. (4.295)

To have refined senses and a refined taste; to be accustomed to the exquisite and most excellent things of the spirit . . . (4.302)

Live in seclusion so that you are able to live for yourself! Live in ignorance of what seems most important to your age! (4.338)

. . . spreading a Homeric light and splendour over all things. (5.370) ...more

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May 04, 2020 Alex rated it it was amazing

Books 4 and 5 cemented this in my mind as a prose and philosophical masterpiece. On to Zarathustra

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Jun 30, 2018 Aung Sett Kyaw Min rated it really liked it

This was not an easy book to digest, you have to be in a certain physiological state, of a certain digestion, which is precisely one of the significant points that Nietzsche raises in book 5. Against the prejudice of the scholars that the books are deep, contemplative products of reason/consciousness and that thinking is a heavy activity that weighs you down, plagues your head like a leaden helmet, and makes you sit down in your study, Nietzsche presents us with the notion of "gay science", of t ...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Christopher rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I have a spent a year studying this book and after all that effort I feel at once that I know less and that my life has been enriched - interesting; not unlike reading Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms. If you want the challenge of reading a difficult book rich in ideas, filled with images, and vibrant in its lust for life - then, read this book.

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Aug 31, 2007 Kit rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recentlyread

5 stars, but only if you skip the poetry.

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Apr 18, 2019 RedBrick rated it it was amazing

OMG NIETZCHE STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH THAT THING-IN-ITSELF PUT IT DOWN OH MY GOD HE IS GONNA THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW

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May 12, 2016 Blair rated it really liked it

Shelves: zzz-own-e-book, philosophy

The Will to Truth

“The ‘will to truth’ is more than, ‘I will not allow myself to be deceived,’ it must be ‘I will not deceive, not even myself.’ Thus we have reached the realm of morality.”

Here, the truth is willed into existence as a stream of consciousness, unsullied by any editor or second thought. One chapter amounts to a Happy New Year greeting from Genoa. Sometimes the chapters trail off into… [I guess he went out to think in the open air. Whatever, publish it anyway.] Maybe it is best read ...more

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About Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life- ...more

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“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.” — 1730 likes

“The heaviest burden: “What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh… must return to you—all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and again—and you with it, speck of dust!’ Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, “do you want this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?” — 185 likes

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