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How much of life have I missed, he wondered, simply by failing to look? Or by looking and not seeing?
I hope, Doctor Breuer, the time will come when neither men nor women are tyrannized by each other’s frailties.”
Agonis—the belief that one develops one’s natural gifts only through contest—and
No one desires, he believes, to help another: instead, people wish only to dominate and increase their own power.
Speaking of blind spots, Neitzsche may be projecting.
our unholy Trinity—the name we later adopted for ourselves, though Nietzsche often referred to it as a ‘Pythagorean relationship.’
We believe in our capability to create our own moral structure.”
“Elisabeth is a divisive, mean-spirited, dishonest, anti-Semitic goose.
Nietzsche's sister
“Fräulein, I, too, am Jewish, and must inquire whether Professor Nietzsche shares his sister’s anti-Jewish views?” “I know you’re Jewish. Jenia told me. It’s important that you know Nietzsche cares only about truth. He hates the lie of prejudice—all prejudice. He hates his sister’s anti-Semitism.
She always lies! She is a dangerous woman. Some day, mark my words, she will do Nietzsche great damage!”
Nietzsche's sister, foreshadowing NAZI associations
As you imply, Professor Nietzsche, it would be unwise to ignore the observations and conclusions of these excellent men—yet there is great disadvantage in my beginning with them. Too much authority, too many prestigious opinions and conclusions oppress one’s own imaginative synthetic powers. For much the same reason, I prefer to read a play before seeing it performed and certainly before reading reviews.
I have an especially strong interest in the pre-Socratic philosophers, and with them I have always found it crucial to return to the original text. Interpreters of texts are always dishonest—not intentionally, of course—but they cannot step outside their own historical frame. Nor, for that matter, out of their autobiographical frame.”
“But, Professor Nietzsche, if all interpreters are limited by their autobiographical frame, how do you escape the same limitation in your own work?”
After first listening carefully to the patient’s free-form description of the illness, he next systematically investigated each symptom—its first appearance, its transformation over time, its response to therapeutic efforts.
Oddly enough, I do the same in my consultation
He had never encountered a patient who did not secretly enjoy a microscopic examination of his life.
True.
The joy of being observed ran so deep that Breuer believed the real pain of old age, bereavement, outliving one’s friends, was the absence of scrutiny—the horror of living an unobserved life.
“I have black periods. Who has not? But they do not have me. They are not of my illness, but of my being. One might say I have the courage to have them.”
I have a why of living and can put up with any how.
Man's search for meaning
“Yet can you deny that all of us are embedded in a social context, a context that historically has facilitated survival and provided the pleasure inherent in human connectedness?” “Perhaps such herd pleasures are not for everyone,” Nietzsche said, shaking his head.
You speak about the truth in a holy tone, as though to substitute one religion for another.
“It is not the truth that is holy, but the search for one’s own truth! Can there be a more sacred act than self-inquiry? My philosophical work, some say, is built on sand: my views shift continually. But one of my granite sentences is: ‘Become who you are.’ And how can one discover who and what one is without the truth?”
I’ve always felt the final reward of the dead is to die no more!”
“Lying to himself, Sig? How do you lie to yourself? Who is the liar? Who is being lied to?”
“Sig, more and more you talk of this little unconscious homunculus living a separate life from its host. Please, Sig, follow my advice: speak about this theory only to me. No, no, I won’t call it a theory even—there’s no evidence whatsoever for it—let’s call it a fanciful notion. Don’t talk about this fanciful notion to Brücke: it would relieve his guilt for not having the courage to promote a Jew.” Freud responded with unusual resoluteness. “It will remain between us until it is proven by sufficient evidence. Then I shall not refrain from publication.”
“Sig, you speak of evidence, as though this could be a subject for scientific inquiry. But this homunculus has no concrete reality. It’s simply a construct, like a Platonic ideal. What would possibly constitute evidence?
I am told Hegel lamented on his deathbed that he had only one student who understood him, and even that one student misunderstood him! I am unable to claim even one misunderstanding student.”
Inquiry and science start with disbelief. Yet disbelief is inherently stressful! Only the strong can tolerate it. Do you know what the real question for a thinker is?” He did not pause for an answer. “The real question is: How much truth can I stand?
Earlier you presented your lack of wife, children, and colleagues as evidence that you had eliminated stress from your life. But I see it differently: extreme isolation doesn’t eliminate stress but is, in itself, stress. Loneliness is a breeding ground for sickness.”
There are reasons beyond reasons”—words
“I have been called many things—philosopher, psychologist, pagan, agitator, antichrist. I have even been called some unflattering things.
I prefer to call myself a scientist, because the cornerstone of my philosophic method, as of the scientific method, is disbelief.
I do not claim that I philosophize for you, whereas you, Doctor, continue to pretend that your motivation is to serve me, to alleviate my pain. Such claims have nothing to do with human motivation. They are part of the slave mentality artfully engineered by priestly propaganda. Dissect your motives deeper! You will find that no one has ever done anything wholly for others. All actions are self-directed, all service is self-serving, all love self-loving.”
Perhaps you think of those you love. Dig deeper, and you will learn that you do not love them: what you love is the pleasant sensations such love produces in you! You love desire, not the desired.
“You assume your own attitudes are universal and then you try to comprehend for all mankind what you cannot comprehend about yourself.”
at least I am in familiar waters. I have visited this pain many times before.”
professional jargon, which, though offering the illusion of knowledge, is in reality the language of ignorance.
Ordinarily, leavetaking is accompanied by denials of the permanence of the event: people say, ‘Auf Wiedersehen’—until we meet again. They are quick to plan for reunions and then, even more quickly, forget their resolutions. I am not one of those. I prefer the truth—which is that we shall almost certainly not meet again.
Great way to leave parties
Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness.
I believe you consider it your mission to demonstrate that out of disbelief one can create a code of behavior for man, a new morality, a new enlightenment, to replace one born out of superstition and the lust for the supernatural.”
“I believe, though you may disagree with my choice of terms, that your mission is to save humankind from both nihilism and illusion?”
“Well, save me! Conduct the experiment with me! I’m the perfect subject. I have killed God. I have no supernatural bel...
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My skills for social intercourse, my trust, my caring for others—these have long atrophied. If, indeed, such skills were ever present.
How could he admit to having wagered his whole life only to find that the final prize was, after all, not to his liking? No, these things he must keep to himself. There are things you don’t tell the young ones.
I find it remarkable that you are responsible for all of your thoughts and all of your deeds, whereas she”—Nietzsche’s voice was stern, and he shook his finger at Breuer—“she, by virtue of her illness, is exonerated from everything.”
Perhaps Lou Salomé is right; perhaps he is destined to be a great philosopher. As long as he avoids the subject of human beings! In most aspects of human relatedness he has prodigious blind spots. But when it comes to the subject of women, he is barbaric, hardly human.
Your task is to accept yourself—not to find ways to gain my acceptance.”
he who does not obey himself is ruled by others. It is easier, far easier, to obey another than to command oneself.”
those who wish for peace of soul and happiness must believe and embrace faith, while those who wish to pursue the truth must forsake peace of mind and devote their life to inquiry.
If you kill God, you must also leave the shelter of the temple.”
‘One must have chaos and frenzy within oneself to give birth to a dancing star.’
Not yet does he understand that there is a my way and a your way, but that there is no “the” way.
