The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 16 of 27
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The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 91
Glue, only glue to me dispense, The wood I'll find myself, don't fear! To give four senseless verses sense— That's an achievement I revere!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 409
_Melos_, according to its root, signifies a soothing means, not because the song is gentle itself, but because its after-effect makes gentle.—And not only in the religious song, but also in the secular song of the most ancient times the prerequisite is that the rhythm should exercise a magical influence; for example, in drawing water, or in rowing: the song is for the enchanting of the spirits supposed to be active thereby; it makes them obliging, involuntary, and the instruments of man.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 745
_Where Cruelty is Necessary._—He who is great is cruel to his second-rate virtues and judgments.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 671
_Poor._—He is now poor, but not because everything has been taken from him, but because he has thrown everything away:—what does he care? He is accustomed to find new things.—It is the poor who misunderstand his voluntary poverty.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 947
Some cry or other is continually calling one aside: our eye then rarely lights on anything without it becoming necessary for us to leave for a moment our own affairs and rush to give assistance. I know there are hundreds of respectable and laudable methods of making me stray _from my course_, and in truth the most "moral" of methods!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 278
_Against Remorse._—The thinker sees in his own actions attempts and questionings to obtain information about something or other; success and failure are _answers_ to him first and foremost. To vex himself, however, because something does not succeed, or to feel remorse at all—he leaves that to those who act because they are commanded to do so, and expect to get a beating when their gracious master is not satisfied with the result.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 735
_Always at Home._—One day we attain our _goal_—and then refer with pride to the long journeys we have made to reach it. In truth, we did not notice that we travelled. We got into the habit of thinking that we were _at home_ in every place.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1028
Wherever the Jews have attained to influence, they have taught to analyse more subtly, to argue more acutely, to write more clearly and purely: it has always been their problem to bring a people "to _raison_.")
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1084
A new flora and fauna of men thereupon springs up, which cannot grow in more stable, more restricted eras—or is left "at the bottom," under the ban and suspicion of infamy—, thereupon the most interesting and insane periods of history always make their appearance, in which "stage-players," _all_ kinds of stage-players, are the real masters.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 143
_Loss of Dignity._—Meditation has lost all its dignity of form; the ceremonial and solemn bearing of the meditative person have been made a mockery, and one would no longer endure a wise man of the old style.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1313
Ah, what I wrote on board and wall With foolish heart, in foolish scrawl, I meant but for their decoration!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1144
Such an instinct would develop most readily in families of the lower class of the people, who have had to pass their lives in absolute dependence, under shifting pressure and constraint, who (to accommodate themselves to their conditions, to adapt themselves always to new circumstances) had again and again to pass themselves off and represent themselves as different persons,—thus having gradually qualified themselves to adjust the mantle to _every_ wind, thereby almost becoming the mantle itself, as masters of the embodied and incarnated art of eternally playing the game of hide and seek, which one calls _mimicry_ among the animals:—until at last this ability, stored up from generation to generation, has become domineering, irrational and intractable, till as instinct it begins to command the other instincts, and begets the actor, the "artist" (the buffoon, the pantaloon, the Jack-Pudding, the fool, and the clown in the first place, also the classical type of servant, Gil Blas: for in such types one has the precursors of the artist, and often enough even of the "genius").
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1334
Saw you rushing over Heaven, With your steeds so wildly driven, Saw the car in which you flew; Saw the lash that wheeled and quivered, While the hand that held it shivered, Urging on the steeds anew.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 686
_A Spendthrift._—He has not yet the poverty of the rich man who has counted all his treasure,—he squanders his spirit with the irrationalness of the spendthrift Nature.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 362
_The greatest Danger._—Had there not at all times been a larger number of men who regarded the cultivation of their mind—their "rationality"—as their pride, their obligation, their virtue, and were injured or shamed by all play of fancy and extravagance of thinking—as lovers of "sound common sense":—mankind would long ago have perished!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 238
The former show their weakness and feminine character by willingly letting themselves be temporarily deceived, and perhaps even by putting up with a little ecstasy and enthusiasm on a time, but on the whole they are never to be satisfied, and suffer from the incurability of their dissatisfaction; moreover they are the patrons of all those who manage to concoct opiate and narcotic comforts, and just on that account averse to those who value the physician higher than the priest,—they thereby encourage the _continuance_ of actual distress!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 922
Or like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the contrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred different ways.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 345
_Self-dissembling._—She loves him now and has since been looking forth with as quiet confidence as a cow; but alas! It was precisely his delight that she seemed so fitful and absolutely incomprehensible! He had rather too much steady weather in himself already! Would she not do well to feign her old character? to feign indifference? Does not—love itself advise her _to do so_? _Vivat comœdia!_
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 26
We are not thinking frogs, we are not objectifying and registering apparatuses with cold entrails,—our thoughts must be continually born to us out of our pain, and we must, motherlike, share with them all that we have in us of blood, heart, ardour, joy, passion, pang, conscience, fate and fatality. Life—that means for us to transform constantly into light and flame all that we are, and also all that we meet with; we _cannot_ possibly do otherwise.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 841
That on which he has now and again set his heart has already brought him several times to the abyss, and to the very verge of ruin; and if he has as yet got out of the scrape, it certainly has not been merely with a "black eye." Do you think he is unhappy over it? He resolved long ago not to regard his own wishes and plans as of so much importance.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 665
_Thoughts._—Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments—always, however, obscurer, emptier, and simpler.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1262
_Diu noctuque incubando_, as Newton said of himself? At least there are truths of a peculiar shyness and ticklishness which one can only get hold of suddenly, and in no other way,—which one must either _take by surprise_, or leave alone.... Finally, my brevity has still another value: on those questions which pre-occupy me, I must say a great deal briefly, in order that it may be heard yet more briefly.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 678
_The Good-natured._—What is it that distinguishes the good-natured, whose countenances beam kindness, from other people? They feel quite at ease in presence of a new person, and are quickly enamoured of him; they therefore wish him well; their first opinion is: "He pleases me." With them there follow in succession the wish to appropriate (they make little scruple about the person's worth), rapid appropriation, joy in the possession, and actions in favour of the person possessed.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 327
The reputation, the name and appearance, the importance, the usual measure and weight of things—each being in origin most frequently an error and arbitrariness thrown over the things like a garment, and quite alien to their essence and even to their exterior—have gradually, by the belief therein and its continuous growth from generation to generation, grown as it were on-and-into things and become their very body; the appearance at the very beginning becomes almost always the essence in the end, and _operates_ as the essence!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 668
_In Solitude._—When one lives alone one does not speak too loudly, and one does not write too loudly either, for one fears the hollow reverberation—the criticism of the nymph Echo.—And all voices sound differently in solitude!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 620
_Religious Wars._—The greatest advance of the masses hitherto has been religious war, for it proves that the masses have begun to deal reverently with conceptions of things. Religious wars only result, when human reason generally has been refined by the subtle disputes of sects; so that even the populace becomes punctilious and regards trifles as important, actually thinking it possible that the "eternal salvation of the soul" may depend upon minute distinctions of concepts.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 728
_Thoughts and Words._—Even our thoughts we are unable to render completely in words.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 727
_Origin of "Good" and "Bad."_—He only will devise an improvement who can feel that "this is not good."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1166
_At the Sight of a Learned Book._—We do not belong to those who only get their thoughts from books, or at the prompting of books,—it is our custom to think in the open air, walking, leaping, climbing, or dancing on lonesome mountains by preference, or close to the sea, where even the paths become thoughtful. Our first question concerning the value of a book, a man, or a piece of music is: Can it walk? or still better: Can it dance?...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1246
As such, we have also outgrown Christianity, and are disinclined to it—and just because we have grown _out of_ it, because our forefathers were Christians uncompromising in their Christian integrity, who willingly sacrificed possessions and positions, blood and country, for the sake of their belief. We—do the same. For what, then? For our unbelief? For all sorts of unbelief? Nay, you know better than that, my friends!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 213
If the neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that destruction of power, that injury for _his_ advantage, he would thwart such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his unselfishness just by _not giving it a good name_! The fundamental contradiction in that morality which at present stands in high honour is here indicated: the _motives_ to such a morality are in antithesis to its _principle_!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 360
_The Unsuccessful._—Those poor women always fail of success who become agitated and uncertain, and talk too much in presence of him whom they love; for men are most successfully seduced by a certain subtle and phlegmatic tenderness.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1096
We feel with Leibnitz that "our inner world is far richer, ampler, and more concealed"; as Germans we are doubtful, like Kant, about the ultimate validity of scientific knowledge of nature, and in general about whatever _can_ be known _causaliter_: the _knowable_ as such now appears to us of _less_ worth.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1207
_We Unintelligible Ones._—Have we ever complained among ourselves of being misunderstood, misjudged, and confounded with others; of being calumniated, misheard, and not heard? That is just our lot—alas, for a long time yet! say, to be modest, until 1901—, it is also our distinction; we should not have sufficient respect for ourselves if we wished it otherwise.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 566
Pope Leo X. once (in the brief to Beroaldus) sang the praise of science; he designated it as the finest ornament and the greatest pride of our life, a noble employment in happiness and in misfortune; "without it," he says finally, "all human undertakings would be without a firm basis,—even with it they are still sufficiently mutable and insecure!" But this rather sceptical Pope, like all other ecclesiastical panegyrists of science, suppressed his ultimate judgment concerning it.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1069
This is the proper phenomenalism and perspectivism as I understand it: the nature of _animal consciousness_ involves the notion that the world of which we can become conscious is only a superficial and symbolic world, a generalised and vulgarised world;—that everything which becomes conscious _becomes_ just thereby shallow, meagre, relatively stupid,—a generalisation, a symbol, a characteristic of the herd; that with the evolving of consciousness there is always combined a great, radical perversion, falsification, superficialisation, and generalisation.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 368
_We others are the exceptions and the danger_,—we eternally need protection!—Well, there can actually be something said in favour of the exceptions _provided that they never want to become the rule_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 759
It is always as in the last moment before the departure of an emigrant-ship: people have more than ever to say to one another, the hour presses, the ocean with its lonely silence waits impatiently behind all the noise—so greedy, so certain of its prey! And all, all, suppose that the past has been nothing, or a small matter, that the near future is everything: hence this haste, this crying, this self-deafening and self-overreaching!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1225
A "scientific" interpretation of the world as you understand it might consequently still be one of the _stupidest_ that is to say, the most destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpretations:—I say this in confidence to my friends the Mechanicians, who to-day like to hobnob with philosophers, and absolutely believe that mechanics is the teaching of the first and last laws upon which, as upon a ground-floor, all existence must be built.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1017
From whence perhaps it could be inferred that the two world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, might well have had the cause of their rise, and especially of their rapid extension, in an extraordinary _malady of the will_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 88
Shy, gloomy, when your looks are backward thrust, Trusting the future where yourself you trust, Are you an eagle, mid the nobler fowl, Or are you like Minerva's darling owl?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 109
(The poets, for example, have always been the valets of some morality or other.)—It is obvious of itself that these tragedians also work in the interest of the _race_, though they may believe that they work in the interest of God, and as emissaries of God. They also further the life of the species, _in that they further the belief in life_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 192
_Across the Plank._—One must be able to dissimulate in intercourse with persons who are ashamed of their feelings; they experience a sudden aversion towards anyone who surprises them in a state of tender, or enthusiastic and high-running feeling, as if he had seen their secrets. If one wants to be kind to them in such moments one should make them laugh, or say some kind of cold, playful wickedness:—their feeling thereby congeals, and they are again self-possessed.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 637
Injustice made a different impression on the feelings: for people were afraid of divine retribution, and not only of legal punishment and disgrace. What joy was there in an age when men believed in the devil and tempter! What passion was there when people saw demons lurking close at hand!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 717
_The most Dangerous Point of View._—What I now do, or neglect to do, is as important _for all that is to come_, as the greatest event of the past: in this immense perspective of effects all actions are equally great and small.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 241
Europe is an invalid who owes her best thanks to her incurability and the eternal transformations of her sufferings; these constant new situations, these equally constant new dangers, pains, and make-shifts, have at last generated an intellectual sensitiveness which is almost equal to genius, and is in any case the mother of all genius.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 910
Before knowledge is possible each of these impulses must first have brought forward its one-sided view of the object or event. The struggle of these one-sided views occurs afterwards, and out of it there occasionally arises a compromise, a pacification, a recognition of rights on all three sides, a sort of justice and agreement: for in virtue of the justice and agreement all those impulses can maintain themselves in existence and retain their mutual rights.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 344
_The Strength of the Weak._—Women are all skilful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm; their existence is meant to bring home to man's mind his coarseness, and to appeal to his conscience. They thus defend themselves against the strong and all "rights of might."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 818
The disposition of the thinker, as incompatible with a "fixed reputation," is regarded as _dishonourable_, while the petrifaction of opinions has all the honour to itself:—we have at present still to live under the interdict of such rules! How difficult it is to live when one feels that the judgment of many millenniums is around one and against one.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 306
_The Argument of Isolation._—The reproach of conscience, even in the most conscientious, is weak against the feeling: "This and that are contrary to the good morals of _your_ society." A cold glance or a wry mouth, on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been educated, is still _feared_ even by the strongest. What is really feared there? Isolation! as the argument which demolishes even the best arguments for a person or cause!—It is thus that the gregarious instinct speaks in us.