Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy)

by Friedrich Nietzsche

(Germans invented gunpowder – all honors due! But they made up for it – they invented the press.)

If you hear anyone praised these days for living “wisely” or “like a philosopher” it basically just means he is “clever and keeps out of the way.” To the rabble, wisdom seems like a kind of escape, a device or trick for pulling yourself out of the game when things get rough. But the real philosopher (and isn’t this how it seems to us, my friends?) lives “unphilosophically,” “unwisely,” in a manner which is above all not clever, and feels the weight and duty of a hundred experiments and temptations3 of life: – he constantly puts himself at risk, he plays the rough game . . .

The noble type of person feels that he determines value, he does not need anyone’s approval, he judges that “what is harmful to me is harmful in itself,” he knows that he is the one who gives honor to things in the first place, he creates values.