The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 10 of 27
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The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 830
The world always becomes fuller for him who grows up into the full stature of humanity; there are always more interesting fishing-hooks, thrown out to him; the number of his stimuli is continually on the increase, and similarly the varieties of his pleasure and pain,—the higher man becomes always at the same time happier and unhappier.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 298
At that time a man went through a long schooling of corporeal tortures and privations, and found even in a certain kind of cruelty toward himself, in a voluntary use of pain, a necessary means for his preservation; at that time a person trained his environment to the endurance of pain; at that time a person willingly inflicted pain, and saw the most frightful things of this kind happen to others, without having any other feeling than for his own security.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 710
_The Distrustful and their Style._—We say the strongest things simply, provided people are about us who believe in our strength:—such an environment educates to "simplicity of style." The distrustful, on the other hand, speak emphatically; they make things emphatic.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1051
In truth, the second of these inventions is the more essential: the first, the mode of life, has usually been there already, side by side, however, with other modes of life, and still unconscious of the value which it embodies. The import, the originality of the founder of a religion, discloses itself usually in the fact that he _sees_ the mode of life, _selects_ it, and _divines_ for the first time the purpose for which it can be used, how it can be interpreted.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1105
To look upon nature as if it were a proof of the goodness and care of a God; to interpret history in honour of a divine reason, as a constant testimony to a moral order in the world and a moral final purpose; to explain personal experiences as pious men have long enough explained them, as if everything were a dispensation or intimation of Providence, something planned and sent on behalf of the salvation of the soul: all that is now _past_, it has conscience _against_ it, it is regarded by all the more acute consciences as disreputable and dishonourable, as mendaciousness, femininism, weakness, and cowardice,—by virtue of this severity, if by anything, we are _good_ Europeans, the heirs of Europe's longest and bravest self-conquest.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 555
It is necessary to know thy aim, thy horizon, thy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially the ideals and fantasies of thy soul, in order to determine _what_ health implies even for thy _body_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 971
To the few at least whose eye, whose _suspecting_ glance, is strong enough and subtle enough for this drama, some sun seems to have set, some old, profound confidence seems to have changed into doubt: our old world must seem to them daily more darksome, distrustful, strange and "old." In the main, however, one may say that the event itself is far too great, too remote, too much beyond most people's power of apprehension, for one to suppose that so much as the report of it could have _reached_ them; not to speak of many who already knew _what_ had really taken place, and what must all collapse now that this belief had been undermined,—because so much was built upon it, so much rested on it, and had become one with it: for example, our entire European morality.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1068
Fundamentally our actions are in an incomparable manner altogether personal, unique and absolutely individual—there is no doubt about it; but as soon as we translate them into consciousness, they _do not appear so any longer_....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 942
The entire economy of my soul and its adjustment by "misfortune," the uprising of new sources and needs, the closing up of old wounds, the repudiation of whole periods of the past—none of these things which may be connected with misfortune preoccupy the dear sympathiser.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 595
_Axioms._—An unavoidable hypothesis on which mankind must always fall back again, is, in the long run, _more powerful_ than the most firmly believed belief in something untrue (like the Christian belief). In the long run: that means a hundred thousand years from now.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 594
_Against Christianity._—It is now no longer our reason, but our taste that decides against Christianity.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 416
_The Good and the Beautiful._—Artists _glorify_ continually—they do nothing else,—and indeed they glorify all those conditions and things that have a reputation, so that man may feel himself good or great, or intoxicated, or merry, or pleased and wise by it. Those _select_ things and conditions whose value for human _happiness_ is regarded as secure and determined, are the objects of artists: they are ever lying in wait to discover such things, to transfer them into the domain of art.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1021
_The Origin of the Learned._—The learned man in Europe grows out of all the different ranks and social conditions, like a plant requiring no specific soil: on that account he belongs essentially and involuntarily to the partisans of democratic thought. But this origin betrays itself.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 638
What philosophy was there when doubt was regarded as sinfulness of the most dangerous kind, and in fact as an outrage on eternal love, as distrust of everything good, high, pure, and compassionate!—We have coloured things anew, we paint them over continually,—but what have we been able to do hitherto in comparison with the _splendid colouring_ of that old master!—I mean ancient humanity.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 506
_Our Ultimate Gratitude to Art._—If we had not approved of the Arts and invented this sort of cult of the untrue, the insight into the general untruth and falsity of things now given us by science—an insight into delusion and error as conditions of intelligent and sentient existence—would be quite unendurable. _Honesty_ would have disgust and suicide in its train. Now, however, our honesty has a counterpoise which helps us to escape such consequences;—namely, Art, as the _good-will_ to illusion.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1244
Will it not _be obliged_ to desire the perpetuation of the petty-state system of Europe?...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1043
Who would desire to deprive the people of that expression and that veneration?—But as is fair on the other side, among philosophers the priest also is still held to belong to the "people," and is _not_ regarded as a sage, because, above all, they themselves do not believe in "sages," and they already scent "the people" in this very belief and superstition.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 349
_Capacity for Revenge._—That a person cannot and consequently will not defend himself, does not yet cast disgrace upon him in our eyes; but we despise the person who has neither the ability nor the good-will for revenge—whether it be a man or a woman. Would a woman be able to captivate us (or, as people say, to "fetter" us) whom we did not credit with knowing how to employ the dagger (any kind of dagger) skilfully _against us_ under certain circumstances? Or against herself; which in a certain case might be the severest revenge (the Chinese revenge).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 612
_Too Oriental._—What? A God who loves men, provided that they believe in him, and who hurls frightful glances and threatenings at him who does not believe in this love! What? A conditioned love as the feeling of an almighty God! A love which has not even become master of the sentiment of honour and of the irritable desire for vengeance! How Oriental is all that! "If I love thee, what does it concern thee?"[9] is already a sufficient criticism of the whole of Christianity.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 780
_Lofty Moods._—It seems to me that most men do not believe in lofty moods, unless it be for the moment, or at the most for a quarter of an hour,—except the few who know by experience a longer duration of high feeling. But to be absolutely a man with a single lofty feeling, the incarnation of a single lofty mood—that has hitherto been only a dream and an enchanting possibility: history does not yet give us any trustworthy example of it.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1197
All Romanticism in art and knowledge responds to the twofold craving of the _latter_; to them Schopenhauer as well as Wagner responded (and responds),—to name those most celebrated and decided romanticists who were then _misunderstood_ by me (_not_ however to their disadvantage, as may be reasonably conceded to me).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 701
_Cause and Effect._—Before the effect one believes in other causes than after the effect.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 657
_Fame._—When the gratitude of many to one casts aside all shame, then fame originates.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 520
_Origin of Knowledge._—Throughout immense stretches of time the intellect has produced nothing but errors; some of them proved to be useful and preservative of the species: he who fell in with them, or inherited them, waged the battle for himself and his offspring with better success.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1077
The great certainty of the natural sciences in comparison with psychology and the criticism of the elements of consciousness—_unnatural_ sciences as one might almost be entitled to call them—rests precisely on the fact that they take _what is strange_ as their object: while it is almost like something contradictory and absurd _to wish_ to take generally what is not strange as an object....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1173
But then you will also immediately get something different: that is to say, instead of the craftsman and expert, the literary man, the versatile, "many-sided" littérateur, who to be sure lacks the hump—not taking account of the hump or bow which he makes before you as the shopman of the intellect and the "porter" of culture—, the littérateur, who _is_ really nothing, but "represents" almost everything: he plays and "represents" the expert, he also takes it upon himself in all modesty _to see that he is_ paid, honoured and celebrated in this position.—No, my learned friends!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 527
The human brain was gradually filled with such judgments and convictions; and in this tangled skein there arose ferment, strife and lust for power. Not only utility and delight, but every kind of impulse took part in the struggle for "truths": the intellectual struggle became a business, an attraction, a calling, a duty, an honour—: cognizing and striving for the true finally arranged themselves as needs among other needs.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1146
As regards the _Jews_, however, the adaptable people _par excellence_, we should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them a world-historical institution from the very beginning, for the rearing of actors, a genuine breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is _not_—a Jew?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 472
At least Wagner's hatred of science, which manifests itself in his preaching, has certainly not been inspired by the spirit of charitableness and kindness—nor by the _spirit_ at all, as is sufficiently obvious.—Finally, it is of little importance what the philosophy of an artist is, provided it is only a supplementary philosophy, and does not do any injury to his art itself.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 814
_A Fixed Reputation._—A fixed reputation was formerly a matter of the very greatest utility; and wherever society continues to be ruled by the herd-instinct, it is still most suitable for every individual _to give_ to his character and business _the appearance_ of unalterableness,—even when they are not so in reality. "One can rely on him, he remains the same"—that is the praise which has most significance in all dangerous conditions of society.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 975
In fact, we philosophers and "free spirits" feel ourselves irradiated as by a new dawn by the report that the "old God is dead"; our hearts overflow with gratitude, astonishment, presentiment and expectation. At last the horizon seems open once more, granting even that it is not bright; our ships can at last put out to sea in face of every danger; every hazard is again permitted to the discerner; the sea, _our_ sea, again lies open before us; perhaps never before did such an "open sea" exist.—
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1242
On the other hand, however, we are not nearly "German" enough (in the sense in which the word "German" is current at present) to advocate nationalism and race-hatred, or take delight in the national heart-itch and blood-poisoning, on account of which the nations of Europe are at present bounded off and secluded from one another as if by quarantines.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1046
But should not the disguise of "moral men," the screening under moral formulæ and notions of decency, the whole kindly concealment of our conduct under conceptions of duty, virtue, public sentiment, honourableness, and disinterestedness, have just as good reasons in support of it?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 654
_Concerning an Invalid._—"Things go badly with him!"—What is wrong?—"He suffers from the longing to be praised, and finds no sustenance for it."—Inconceivable! All the world does honour to him, and he is reverenced not only in deed but in word!—"Certainly, but he is dull of hearing for the praise. When a friend praises him it sounds to him as if the friend praised himself; when an enemy praises him, it sounds to him as if the enemy wanted to be praised for it; when, finally, some one else praises him—there are by no means so many of these, he is so famous!—he is offended because they neither want him for a friend nor for an enemy; he is accustomed to say: 'What do I care for those who can still pose as the all-righteous towards me!'"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 718
_Consolatory Words of a Musician._—"Your life does not sound into people's ears: for them you live a dumb life, and all refinements of melody, all fond resolutions in following or leading the way, are concealed from them. To be sure you do not parade the thoroughfares with regimental music,—but these good people have no right to say on that account that your life is lacking in music. He that hath ears let him hear."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 700
_Danger in the Voice._—With a very loud voice a person is almost incapable of reflecting on subtle matters.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1011
_Believers and their Need of Belief._—How much _faith_ a person requires in order to flourish, how much "fixed opinion" he requires which he does not wish to have shaken, because he _holds_ himself thereby—is a measure of his power (or more plainly speaking, of his weakness). Most people in old Europe, as it seems to me, still need Christianity at present, and on that account it still finds belief.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1133
Let me not be misunderstood: out of such born _enemies of the spirit_ there arises now and then that rare specimen of humanity who is honoured by the people under the name of saint or sage: it is out of such men that there arise those prodigies of morality that make a noise, that make history,—St Augustine was one of these men. Fear of the intellect, vengeance on the intellect—Oh! how often have these powerfully impelling vices become the root of virtues!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 29
Be it that we learn to confront it with our pride, our scorn, our strength of will, doing like the Indian who, however sorely tortured, revenges himself on his tormentor with his bitter tongue; be it that we withdraw from the pain into the oriental nothingness—it is called Nirvana,—into mute, benumbed, deaf self-surrender, self-forgetfulness, and self-effacement: one emerges from such long, dangerous exercises in self-mastery as another being, with several additional notes of interrogation, and above all, with the _will_ to question more than ever, more profoundly, more strictly, more sternly, more wickedly, more quietly than has ever been questioned hitherto.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 168
_The Goal of Science._—What? The ultimate goal of science is to create the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But what if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who _wants_ the greatest possible amount of the one _must_ also have the greatest possible amount of the other,—that he who wants to experience the "heavenly high jubilation,"[7] must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto death"?(ref. same footnote) And it is so, perhaps!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 49
My luck's good—I'd make yours fairer, (Good luck ever needs a sharer), Will you stop and pluck my roses?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 334
We dead-silent, untiring wanderers on heights which we do not see as heights, but as our plains, as our places of safety!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 902
For life in the hunt for gain continually compels a person to consume his intellect, even to exhaustion, in constant dissimulation, overreaching, or forestalling: the real virtue nowadays is to do something in a shorter time than another person. And so there are only rare hours of sincere intercourse _permitted_: in them, however, people are tired, and would not only like "to let themselves go," but _to stretch their legs_ out wide in awkward style.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 8
What wonder that much that is unreasonable and foolish thereby comes to light: much wanton tenderness expended even on problems which have a prickly hide, and are not therefore fit to be fondled and allured.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 871
_Prophetic Men._—Ye cannot divine how sorely prophetic men suffer: ye think only that a fine "gift" has been given to them, and would fain have it yourselves,—but I will express my meaning by a simile. How much may not the animals suffer from the electricity of the atmosphere and the clouds! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with regard to the weather, for example, apes (as one can observe very well even in Europe,—and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 333
It suffices to love, to hate, to desire, and in general to feel,—_immediately_ the spirit and the power of the dream come over us, and we ascend, with open eyes and indifferent to all danger, the most dangerous paths, to the roofs and towers of fantasy, and without any giddiness, as persons born for climbing—we the night-walkers by day! We artists! We concealers of naturalness! We moon-struck and God-struck ones!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 38
One should have more reverence for the _shamefacedness_ with which nature has concealed herself behind enigmas and motley uncertainties. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not showing her reasons? Perhaps her name is Baubo, to speak in Greek?... Oh, those Greeks! They knew how _to live_: for that purpose it is necessary to keep bravely to the surface, the fold and the skin; to worship appearance, to believe in forms, tones, and words, in the whole Olympus of appearance!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 760
Everyone wants to be foremost in this future,—and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the _furthest_ from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 946
Ah, how little you know of the _happiness_ of man, you comfortable and good-natured ones!—for happiness and misfortune are brother and sister, and twins, who grow tall together, or, as with you, _remain small_ together! But now let us return to the first question.—How is it at all possible for a person to keep to _his_ path!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 970
_What our Cheerfulness Signifies._—The most important of more recent events—that "God is dead," that the belief in the Christian God has become unworthy of belief—already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe.