When Nietzsche Wept: A Novel Of Obsession

by Irvin D. Yalom

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 am my illness and my body, but they are not me. Both must be overcome, if not physically, then metaphysically.

“It is not the truth that is holy, but the search for one’s own truth!

“What is the seal of liberation?—No longer being ashamed in front of oneself!”

He claims that in order to discover the truth, one must first know oneself fully.

‘Whatever does not kill me, makes me stronger.’

For one can never really be helped by another; one must find the strength to help oneself.

I now believe that fears are not born of darkness; rather, fears are like the stars—always there, but obscured by the glare of daylight.

Your task is to accept yourself—not to find ways to gain my acceptance.”

But I hate the man who begs for it, who gives up his power to the dispensing woman—to the crafty woman who turns her weakness, and his strength, into her strength.”

The rabble spend their lives like swine feeding in the trough of lust.”

Nothing must interfere with the development of the hero inside of you. And if lust stands in the way, then it, too, must be overcome.”

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.

‘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.

“Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.”

And what we have invented, we can destroy.”

“Maybe, Josef, living safely is dangerous. Dangerous and deadly.”

the woman of beauty has more power if she is desired by other men.

we are more in love with desire than with the desired!”

I hate others who rob me of my solitude and yet do not truly offer me company.”

Once she is stripped of surplus meanings, he will see her as the frightened naked human, all too human, that she and he and all of us really are.

that time is infinite, and force (the basic stuff of the universe) is finite. Given a finite number of potential states of the world and an infinite amount of time that has passed, it follows, Nietzsche claimed, that all possible states must have already occurred; and that the present state must be a repetition; and, likewise, the one that gave birth to it and the one that arises out of it and so on, backward into the past and forward into the future.

Your task as a parent is to produce not another self, another Josef, but something higher. It’s to produce a creator.

“Nothing is everything! In order to grow strong you must first sink your roots deep into nothingness and learn to face your loneliest loneliness.”

Become strong: otherwise, you will forever use others for your own enlargement.”

It’s like attempting to rebuild a ship at sea.

I know that the key to living well is first to will that which is necessary and then to love that which is willed.”

“Isolation exists only in isolation.