“Zarathustra, the first to recognize that the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist though perhaps more detrimental says: “Good men never speak the truth. The Good preach of false shores and false security. You were born and bred in the lies of the good. Through the good everything has become false and twisted down to the very roots”. Fortunately the world is not built solely to serve good natured herd animals their little happiness ; to desire everybody to become a “good man”, “a herd animal”, blue-eyed, benevolent, “a beautiful soul”— or, as Herbert Spencer wished—altruistic, would mean robbing existence of its great character, to castrate mankind and reduce humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom. And this some have tried to do! It is precisely this that men have called morality. ”
― Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is
― Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is
“Pain is not seen as an objection to life: 'If you have no happiness left to give me, well then! you still have your pain...”
― Ecce Homo
― Ecce Homo
“What looks still to our crude eyes is a wild and dynamic dance.”
― The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
― The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
“We want to be interrupted, because each interruption brings us a valuable piece of information. To turn off these alerts is to risk feeling out of touch, or even socially isolated.”
― The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
― The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
“Every walk in the forest is like taking a shower in oxygen.”
― The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries from a Secret World
― The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate — Discoveries from a Secret World
Mona’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mona’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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