A Nietzsche Reader

by Friedrich Nietzsche

Dangerous books. – Somebody remarked: ‘I can tell by my own reaction to it that this book is harmful.’ But let him only wait and perhaps one day he will admit to himself that this same book has done him a great service by bringing out the hidden sickness of his heart and making it visible.

Don’t call a book harmful and write it off. It is possible for the same book to help you understand yourself better

Against the censurers of brevity. – Something said briefly can be the fruit of much long thought: but the reader who is a novice in this field, and has as yet reflected on it not at all, sees in everything said briefly something embryonic, not without censuring the author for having served him up such immature and unripened fare.

Something brief actually shows depth of thought. But to the novice and untrained eye Brevity can look like un-matured and undeveloped thought, which is not the case

The worst readers are those who behave like plundering troops: they take away a few things they can use, dirty and confound the remainder, and revile the whole.

😂😂😂 Looks like exactly what people have done to Nietzsche. Looks like it is exactly what this book, of Nietzsche quotes, itself is doing

That everyone is allowed to learn to read will in the long run ruin not only writing but thinking, too. Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

That everyone is allowed to learn to read will in the long run ruin not only writing but thinking, too. Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

😂😂😂 Nietzsche is pointing at the dangers of allowing everyone to read. He is saying that human beings are part of a collective consciousness. That that collective consciousness is made up of all the people who can think as they all contribute their thoughts to society And since thinking is a function of reading and writing, the more accessible reading and writing becomes, the more base it is likely to become and therefore more base the collective consciousness In a way, it might be true Equality for all might be a value that we might want to uphold as a society. But do we understand what it is likely to do to our collective consciousness?

He who writes in blood and aphorisms does not want to be read, he wants to be learned by heart. In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak: but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are addressed should be big and tall of stature. The air thin and pure, dan...

In the mountains the shortest route is from peak to peak: but for that you must have long legs. Aphorisms should be peaks: and those to whom they are ad...

Probably why Nietzsche writes in Aphorisms? Nietzsche is also hinting that to understand Aphorisms one needs to be a juggernaut mentally

I no longer feel as you do: this cloud which I see under me, this blackness and heaviness I laugh at – precisely this is your thundercloud. You look up when you desire to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted. Who of you can at once laugh and be exalted? He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary. Courageous, untroubled, mocking, violent – that is what wisdom wants us to be: wisdom is a woman and loves only a warrior. […]

You look up when you desire to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted. Who of you can at once laugh and be exalted? He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

😂

You look up when you desire to be exalted. And I look down because I am exalted. Who of you can at once laugh and be exalted? He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.

😂😂😂 I am Courageous. I am mischievous. I want hobgoblins around me. I want to laugh. I want to have some fun I want to dance

But for precisely this reason it is more necessary than ever today, by precisely this means does it entice and enchant us the most, in the midst of an age of ‘work’, that is to say, of hurry, of indecent and perspiring haste, which wants to ‘get everything done’ at once, including every old or new book: – this art does not so easily get anything done, it teaches to read well, that is to say, to read slowly, deeply, looking cautiously before and aft, with reservations, with doors left open, with delicate eyes and fingers … My patient friends, this book desires for itself only perfect readers and philologists: learn to read me well!

On Philology helping one read slowly and aptly

For I regard profound problems as I do a cold bath – quick in, quick out. That one thereby fails to get down deep enough, fails to reach the depths, is the superstition of hydrophobics, of the enemies of cold water; they speak without experience. Oh! Great cold makes one quick! – And by the way: does a thing really remain unintelligible and unrecognized if it is touched, viewed, illumined simply in passing? Does one absolutely have to sit down on it first? to have brooded on it as on an egg? […] There are, at the very least, truths of a peculiar timidity and ticklishness which one can seize hold of only suddenly – which one must surprise or leave alone

Profound truths, despite popular belief, can be grasped at in a flash. In fact, sometimes, spending too much time on them can lead one to confusion

Perhaps we philosophers are all of us ill-equipped when it comes to knowledge: science is expanding, the most scholarly of us are on the point of discovering that they know too little.

For how much nourishment a spirit requires there is no formula; but if its taste is for independence, for rapid coming and going, for wandering, perhaps for adventures to which only the swiftest are equal, then it prefers to live free on a light diet than unfree and stuffed. Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and strength is what a good dancer wants from his food – and I do not know what the spirit of a philosopher could more wish to be than a good dancer.

Brevity in Philosophy is suitable to the taste of the independent wanderer

If this writing is unintelligible to anyone and jars on his ears the fault is, it seems to me, not necessarily mine. It is clear enough, assuming, as I do assume, that one has read my earlier writings and has not spared some effort in doing so: for they are not easily accessible. As regards my Zarathustra, for example, I count no one as being familiar with it who has not at some time been profoundly wounded and at some time profoundly enraptured by every word in it: for only then may he enjoy the privilege of reverentially participating in the halcyon element out of which that work was born, in its sunlit brightness, remoteness, breadth and certainty.

😂😂😂😂 The confidence

An aphorism, properly stamped and moulded, has not been ‘deciphered’ when it has simply been read; one has then rather to begin its exegesis, for which is required an art of exegesis. […] To be sure, to practise reading as an art in this fashion one thing above all is needed, precisely the thing which has nowadays been most thoroughly unlearned – and that is why it will be some time before my writings are ‘readable’ – a thing for which one must be almost a cow and in any event not a ‘modern man’: rumination…

Nietzsche claims that his writing style is meant to be unlocked through rumination, not merely reading

aphorism, the apophthegm, are the forms of ‘eternity’; my ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book – what everyone else does not say in a book. […]

[…] The conditions under which one understands me and then necessarily understands – I know them all too well. One must be honest in intellectual matters to the point of harshness to so much as endure my seriousness, my passion. One must be accustomed to living on mountains – to seeing the wretched ephemeral chatter of politics and national egoism beneath one. One must have become indifferent, one must never ask whether truth is useful or whether it is a fatality … A preference, born of strength, for questions for which no one today has the courage; courage for the forbidden; predestination for the labyrinth.

Nietzsche’s advice for those trying to understand him

Very well! These alone are my readers, my rightful readers, my predestined readers: what do the rest matter? – The rest are merely mankind. – One must be superior to mankind in force, in loftiness of soul – in contempt …

😲😂😂😂😂

I am one thing, my writings are another. – Here, before I speak of these writings themselves, I shall touch on the question of their being understood or not being understood. I shall do so as perfunctorily as is fitting: for the time for this question has certainly not yet come. My time has not yet come, some are born posthumously. – One day or other institutions will be needed in which people live and teach as I understand living and teaching: perhaps even chairs for the interpretation of Zarathustra will then be established. But it would be a complete contradiction of myself if I expected ears and hands for my truths already today: that I am not heard today, that no one today knows how to take from me, is not only comprehensible, it even seems to me right.

Ultimately, no one can extract from things, books included, more than he already knows. What one has no access to through experience one has no ear for. Now let us imagine an extreme case: that a book speaks of nothing but events which lie outside the possibility of general or even of rare experience – that it is the first language for a new range of experiences. In this case simply nothing will be heard, with the acoustical illusion that where nothing is heard there is nothing … This is in fact my average experience and, if you like, the originality of my experience.

I know my privileges as a writer to some extent: in individual cases it has also been put to me how greatly habituation to my writings ‘ruins’ taste. One can simply no longer endure other books, philosophical ones least of all.

Any ‘feminism’ in a person, or in a man, likewise closes the gates on me: one will never be able to enter this labyrinth of daring knowledge. One must never have spared oneself, harshness must be among one’s habits, if one is to be happy and cheerful among nothing but hard truths.

I know my fate. One day there will be associated with my name the recollection of something frightful – of a crisis like no other before on earth, of the profoundest collision of conscience, of a decision evoked against everything that until then had been believed in, demanded, sanctified. I am not a man, I am dynamite.

😂😂

Perhaps I am a buffoon … And nonetheless, or rather not nonetheless – for there has hitherto been nothing more mendacious than saints – the truth speaks out of me.

Family failing of philosophers. – All philosophers have the common failing of starting out from man as he is now and thinking they can reach their goal through an analysis of him. They involuntarily think of ‘man’ as an aeterna veritas, as something that remains constant in the midst of all flux, as a sure measure of things. Everything the philosopher has declared about man is, however, at bottom no more than a testimony as to the man of a very limited period of time.

Very true. Nietzsche is trying to say that the truth revealed by every Philosopher is subjective and limited to to its time and also limited to a particular social class CHATGPT Nietzsche is critiquing the way philosophers have traditionally approached the understanding of man. Here's a breakdown of the passage: 1. **Starting Point Error**: Nietzsche claims that philosophers make the mistake of starting with the present version of man as a basis for understanding the essence of humanity. They mistakenly think of man as an "eternal truth" that remains constant throughout history. 2. **Man is Not Constant**: He emphasizes that the philosopher's notion of man only speaks to a very specific period of human history, not to man's entirety. Philosophers, according to Nietzsche, lack a historical sense, meaning they fail to consider how human nature and cognition have evolved over time. 3. **Historical Blindness**: Many philosophers, he argues, might take recent versions of humanity (influenced by current religions, political events, etc.) as the standard model for all of humanity. This approach overlooks the vast changes humanity underwent in prehistoric times. 4. **Mistaken Assumptions about Instincts**: Philosophers, observing current human instincts, might wrongly assume that these instincts are timeless and universal. Based on these assumptions, they build entire philosophical systems (teleologies) that explain the purpose and direction of the world, erroneously assuming that everything in the world relates naturally to this unchanging, "eternal" man. 5. **Historical Philosophizing**: Nietzsche stresses that the real essence of humanity can't be gleaned from looking at only the recent past. Recognizing that everything—including human nature, cognition, and instincts—has evolved and "become" over time is crucial. No facts about human nature are eternal, and no truths about it are absolute. 6. **Call for Modesty**: Nietzsche concludes by emphasizing the need for philosophers to be modest in their claims about understanding human nature. They should incorporate a historical perspective that recognizes the evolution and changeability of man. In essence, Nietzsche is urging philosophers to adopt a more historically informed perspective when analyzing human nature, recognizing the evolutionary and dynamic nature of humanity, rather than making broad, timeless claims based on a limited snapshot of history.

Lack of historical sense

most recent manifestati...

Now, everything essential in the development of mankind took place in primeval times, long before the 4,000 years we more or less know about; during these years mankind may well not have altered very much.

the whole of teleology is constructed by speaking of the man of the last four millennia as of an eternal man towards whom all things in the world have had a natural relationship from the time he began.

From the thinker’s innermost experience. – Nothing is more difficult for man than to apprehend a thing impersonally: I mean to see it as a thing, not as a person: one might question, indeed, whether it is at all possible for him to suspend the clockwork of his person-constructing, person-inventing drive even for a moment. He traffics even with ideas, though they be the most abstract, as if they were individuals with whom one has to struggle, to whom one has to ally oneself, whom one has to tend, protect and nourish.

CHATGPT Nietzsche's passage here is dense and rich with ideas, as is typical of his writing. He's exploring the ways in which humans interact with ideas and the deep psychological and emotional attachments they form to them. Let's break down the main points: 1. **Personalizing Ideas**: Nietzsche begins by observing that humans find it difficult to approach ideas impersonally. We tend to anthropomorphize or personify concepts, treating them as entities with which we can ally, challenge, or nurture. This is an intrinsic aspect of human cognition, and Nietzsche questions whether we can ever truly escape it. 2. **Reaction to New Ideas**: When confronted with a new proposition, humans often evaluate it based on its emotional resonance or its perceived assertiveness. If it's autocratic or challenging, one might attempt to diminish its authority by qualifying it with terms like "perhaps" or "sometimes". If it's meek or submissive, one might feel an urge to strengthen or support it. 3. **Marrying Ideas**: Nietzsche describes how humans, when encountering two unrelated ideas, often feel an impulse to connect or "marry" them to produce a new idea or concept. This desire is rooted in our inclination to make sense of and organize information in meaningful ways. 4. **Elevation and Dethronement of Ideas**: If an idea resists either rejection or nurturing, humans may either elevate it to a high status or, if they later become suspicious of it, dethrone and replace it with an opposing idea. This cyclical process reflects our evolving relationship with our beliefs and concepts. 5. **Drive to Knowledge**: Nietzsche suggests that the pursuit of truth and knowledge isn't an innate human drive in itself. Instead, the preference for truth over falsehood arises from its utility and the social esteem it grants. In the realm of thought, establishing oneself on truth (or what is perceived as truth) offers stability and a sense of enduring accomplishment. 6. **Fear and Honour of Our Ideas**: Lastly, Nietzsche delves into the deep emotional connections we form with our ideas. We simultaneously fear and honour them, treating them as independent entities that can judge or praise us. This emotional relationship with our ideas gives rise to what Nietzsche calls the "intellectual conscience". In summary, Nietzsche is exploring the deeply personal and emotional ways in which humans engage with ideas. He argues that our relationships with concepts are rooted in anthropomorphic tendencies, emotional resonances, the utility of truth, and the human need for stability and esteem.

If, on the other hand, this new proposition approaches in a milder shape, nice and tolerant, humble, and sinking as it were into the arms of contradiction, we try another way of testing our autocracy: what, can we not come to the assistance of this weak creature, stroke and feed it, give it strength and fullness, indeed truth and even unconditionally? Can we possibly be parental or knightly or pitying towards it?

A new proposition which we are not averse to but still want to exercise our autocracy over

Then again, we behold a judgement here and a judgement there, separated from one another, not regarding one another, making no impression one upon the other: and we are tickled by the thought of whether here a marriage might not be arranged, a conclusion drawn, in the presentiment that, if a consequence should proceed from this conclusion, the honour of it will fall not only to the two married judgements but also to those who arranged the marriage.

We want to reap the honor of having driven to the conclusion and in effect take credit for any consequence that comes as a result

If, however, one can get hold of that idea neither by means of defiance and ill-will nor by means of good-will (if one holds it for true –), then one yields and pays it homage as a prince and leader, accords it a seat of honour and speaks of it with pomp and pride: for in its glitter one glitters too.

If one cannot subjugate the idea, the new proposition, either by force or by nurturing then one puts on a pedestal and speaks to it with a pomp and pride

Woe to him who seeks to darken it; unless it itself should one day become suspicious to us: – then, unwearying king-makers in the history of the spirit that we are, we hurl it from the throne and immediately raise its opponent in its place.

‘drive to knowledge in and for itself’!

Why then does man prefer the true to the untrue in this secret struggle with idea-persons […]? For the same reason as he practises justice in traffic with real persons: now out of habit, heredity and training, originally because the true – as also the fair and just – is more useful and more productive of honour than the untrue. For in the realm of thought, power and fame are hard to maintain if erected on the basis of error or lies: the feeling that such a building could at some time or other fall down is humiliating to the self-conceit of its architect; he is ashamed of the fragility of his material and, because he takes himself more seriously than he does the rest of the world, wants to do nothing that is not more enduring than the rest of the world.

The pursuits of truth, fairness and justice are more useful and more productive of honour than the untrue. Men search for truth, fairness and justice out of their own vanity, out of their pride, out of their quest for fame, their quest for validation, for immortality “Drive to Knowledge: Nietzsche suggests that the pursuit of truth and knowledge isn’t an innate human drive in itself. Instead, the preference for truth over falsehood arises from its utility and the social esteem it grants. In the realm of thought, establishing oneself on truth (or what is perceived as truth) offers stability and a sense of enduring accomplishment.”

immeasurable pride

That we are afraid of our own ideas, concepts, words, but also honour ourselves in them and involuntarily ascribe to them the capacity to instruct, despise, praise and censure us, that we thus traffic with them as with free intelligent persons, with independent powers, as equals with equals – it is in this that the strange phenomenon I have called ‘intellectual conscience’ has its roots.

Meaning?

In the desert of science. – To the man of science on his unassuming and laborious travels, which must often enough be journeys through the desert, there appear those glittering mirages called ‘philosophical systems’: with bewitching, deceptive power they show the solution of all enigmas and the freshest draught of the true water of life to be near at hand; his heart rejoices, and it seems to the weary traveller that his lips already touch the goal of all the perseverance and sorrows of the scientific life, so that he involuntarily presses forward.

Reminds me of Faust

subjective solace,

raging thirst

single step nearer to any kind of spring.

posterity discovers it in the bricks

Philosophy was thus a kind of supreme struggle

Schopenhauer, fancied themselves to be that one.

Intellectual conscience. – Again and again I am brought up against it, and again and again I resist it: I don’t want to believe it, even though it is almost palpable: the vast majority lack an intellectual conscience; indeed, it often seems to me that to demand such a thing is to be in the most populous cities as solitary as in the desert. Everyone looks at you strangely and goes on working his scales, calling this good, that evil; nobody blushes for shame when you remark that the weights he is using are giving short weight – but nobody is annoyed with you either: perhaps they laugh at your doubts. What I mean to say is: the vast majority do not find it contemptible to believe this or that, and to live in accordance with this belief without first being aware of the ultimate and securest reasons for and against it and without afterwards even taking the trouble to discover such reasons – the most gifted men and the noblest women are still among this ‘vast majority’.

The vast majority does not care to question their beliefs CHATGPT In this passage, Friedrich Nietzsche is discussing the concept of "intellectual conscience," which can be understood as a commitment to rigorous, honest thinking and the quest for truth. Here's a breakdown of his key ideas: 1. **Lack of Intellectual Conscience**: Nietzsche starts by expressing his repeated astonishment and resistance to the fact that most people lack an intellectual conscience. This means that they don't feel a moral obligation to ensure their beliefs are well-founded or critically examined. 2. **Indifference to Truth**: He observes that many people don't find it objectionable to hold beliefs without having examined the strongest arguments for or against them. Even if you point out the inconsistencies in their beliefs, they neither feel ashamed nor confront their own lack of rigorous thinking. They might even find amusement in someone who does question. 3. **The Exception is not the Rule**: Nietzsche notes that even among the most gifted or noble individuals, this lack of intellectual conscience is prevalent. The presence of other virtues (like good-heartedness or genius) doesn't necessarily correlate with a rigorous intellectual conscience. 4. **The Craving for Certainty**: What differentiates higher individuals from the lower, in Nietzsche's view, is the profound need for certainty and the demand for it in their beliefs. He respects those who have a "hatred of reason" if they at least recognize and admit this limitation in themselves. 5. **Contempt for the Unquestioning**: Nietzsche feels a deep contempt for those who exist amidst the complexities and uncertainties of life without the urge to question. For him, not questioning or not being disturbed by someone else's questions is a sign of intellectual complacency. 6. **Nietzsche's Own Bias**: He concludes by admitting that he often wrongly assumes that everyone has this inherent desire to question, which he acknowledges as his own form of injustice. Overall, Nietzsche is emphasizing the importance of rigorous thinking and the moral obligation to question one's beliefs. He criticizes complacency in intellectual matters and values those who constantly seek clarity, understanding, and truth.

demand for certainty

hatred of reason