The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 18 of 27
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The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 253
And thus while their environment and outside die off continually, everything seems to crowd into this environment, and wants to become a "character" of it; they are like great cities in this respect.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 405
Above all, however, people wanted to have the advantage of the elementary conquest which man experiences in himself when he hears music: rhythm is a constraint; it produces an unconquerable desire to yield, to join in; not only the step of the foot, but also the soul itself follows the measure,—probably the soul of the Gods also, as people thought! They attempted, therefore, to _constrain_ the Gods by rhythm and to exercise a power over them; they threw poetry around the Gods like a magic noose.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 979
Is it the will _not to deceive_? For the will to truth could also be interpreted in this fashion, provided one includes under the generalisation, "I will not deceive," the special case, "I will not deceive myself." But why not deceive?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 534
No living being would have been preserved unless the contrary inclination—to affirm rather than suspend judgment, to mistake and fabricate rather than wait, to assent rather than deny, to decide rather than be in the right—had been cultivated with extraordinary assiduity.—The course of logical thought and reasoning in our modern brain corresponds to a process and struggle of impulses, which singly and in themselves are all very illogical and unjust; we experience usually only the result of the struggle, so rapidly and secretly does this primitive mechanism now operate in us.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 279
_Work and Ennui._—In respect to seeking work for the sake of the pay, almost all men are alike at present in civilised countries; to all of them work is a means, and not itself the end; on which account they are not very select in the choice of the work, provided it yields an abundant profit.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1067
The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always more acutely self-conscious; it is only as a social animal that man has learned to become conscious of himself,—he is doing so still, and doing so more and more.—As is obvious, my idea is that consciousness does not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him; that, as follows therefrom, it is only in relation to communal and gregarious utility that it is finely developed; and that consequently each of us, in spite of the best intention of _understanding_ himself as individually as possible, and of "knowing himself," will always just call into consciousness the non-individual in him, namely, his "averageness";—that our thought itself is continuously as it were _outvoted_ by the character of consciousness—by the imperious "genius of the species" therein—and is translated back into the perspective of the herd.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 175
If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill, it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake our life in the cause, as martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a sacrifice to _our_ longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving our sense of power. He who under these circumstances feels that he "is in possession of truth," how many possessions does he not let go, in order to preserve this feeling!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1343
"All things transitory But as symbols are sent, Earth's insufficiency Here grows to Event: The Indescribable Here it is done: The Woman-Soul leadeth us Upward and on!"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 172
But it might also turn out to be the _great pain-bringer_!—And then, perhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered simultaneously, its immense capacity for making new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam forth!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 799
Truly, you understand the reverse art of alchemy, the depreciating of the most valuable things! Try, just for once, another recipe, in order not to realise as hitherto the opposite of what you mean to attain: _deny_ those good things, withdraw from them the applause of the populace and discourage the spread of them, make them once more the concealed chastities of solitary souls, say that _morality is something forbidden_!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 274
It is curious that the subjection to powerful, fear-inspiring, and even dreadful individuals, to tyrants and leaders of armies, is not at all felt so painfully as the subjection to such undistinguished and uninteresting persons as the captains of industry; in the employer the workman usually sees merely a crafty, blood-sucking dog of a man, speculating on every necessity, whose name, form, character, and reputation are altogether indifferent to him.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 980
Why not allow oneself to be deceived?—Let it be noted that the reasons for the former eventuality belong to a category quite different from those for the latter: one does not want to be deceived oneself, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived,—in this sense science would be a prolonged process of caution, foresight and utility; against which, however, one might reasonably make objections. What?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1267
Not fat, but the greatest suppleness and power is what a good dancer wishes from his nourishment,—and I know not what the spirit of a philosopher would like better than to be a good dancer. For the dance is his ideal, and also his art, in the end likewise his sole piety, his "divine service."...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1284
So they go hurrying, stanzas malign, Drunken words—what a clattering, banging!— Till the whole company, line on line, All on the rhythmic chain are hanging. Has he really a cruel heart, your poet? Are there fiends who rejoice, the slaughter to see? "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 395
But people will not readily believe these tenets of mine, and how much of the kind I have still on my soul!—_Est res magna tacere_—says Martial, like all garrulous people.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 791
_Genoa._—I have looked upon this city, its villas and pleasure-grounds and the wide circuit of its inhabited heights and slopes, for a considerable time: in the end I must say that I see _countenances_ out of past generations,—this district is strewn with the images of bold and autocratic men.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 162
For the _tempo_ of the evolutional forces in peoples implies just as much as in music; for our case an _andante_ of evolution is absolutely necessary, as the _tempo_ of a passionate and slow spirit:—and the spirit of conserving families is certainly of _that_ sort.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1092
Firstly, _Leibnitz's_ incomparable insight—with which he obtained the advantage not only over Descartes, but over all who had philosophised up to his time,—that consciousness is only an accident of mental representation, and _not_ its necessary and essential attribute; that consequently what we call consciousness only constitutes a state of our spiritual and psychical world (perhaps a morbid state), and is _far from being that world itself_:—is there anything German in this thought, the profundity of which has not as yet been exhausted?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 933
_Avarice of Nature._—Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity that she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man less, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great men such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? How much less equivocal would life among men then be!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 964
_Incipit Tragœdia._—When Zarathustra was thirty years old, he left his home and the Lake of Urmi, and went into the mountains. There he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude, and for ten years did not weary of it. But at last his heart changed,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, he went before the sun and spake thus unto it: "Thou great star! What would be thy happiness if thou hadst not those for whom thou shinest!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 250
_Adventitious Liars._—When people began to combat the unity of Aristotle in France, and consequently also to defend it, there was once more to be seen that which has been seen so often, but seen so unwillingly:—_people imposed false reasons on themselves_ on account of which those laws ought to exist, merely for the sake of not acknowledging to themselves that they had _accustomed_ themselves to the authority of those laws, and did not want any longer to have things otherwise.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1103
It is at this point that his thorough uprightness of character comes in: unconditional, honest atheism is precisely the _preliminary condition_ for his raising the problem, as a final and hardwon victory of the European conscience, as the most prolific act of two thousand years' discipline to truth, which in the end no longer tolerates the _lie_ of the belief in a God....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 214
That with which this morality wishes to prove itself, refutes it out of its criterion of what is moral! The maxim, "Thou shalt renounce thyself and offer thyself as a sacrifice," in order not to be inconsistent with its own morality, could only be decreed by a being who himself renounced his own advantage thereby, and who perhaps in the required self-sacrifice of individuals brought about his own dissolution.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 576
When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?"—
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1293
No grey old priestly devil, But, young, with cheeks aflame— Who e'en when sick with revel, Can jealous be and blame. To greybeards I'm a stranger, And he, too, hates the old: Of God, the world-arranger, The wisdom here behold!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 779
_Love of Blindness._—"My thoughts," said the wanderer to his shadow, "ought to show me where I stand, but they should not betray to me _whither I go_. I love ignorance of the future, and do not want to come to grief by impatience and anticipatory tasting of promised things."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 164
If the conserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1122
He demolished the conception of "the Church" in that he repudiated the belief in the inspiration of the Councils: for only under the supposition that the inspiring spirit which had founded the Church still lives in it, still builds it, still goes on building its house, does the conception of "the Church" retain its power.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 426
Here is a musician, who, more than any one else, has the genius for discovering the tones peculiar to suffering, oppressed, tortured souls, and who can endow even dumb animals with speech.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 806
That, however, we cannot do:—so we want to do the only thing that is in our power: namely, to bring light to the earth, we want to be "the light of the earth!" And for that purpose we have our wings and our swiftness and our severity, on that account we are manly, and even terrible like the fire. Let those fear us, who do not know how to warm and brighten themselves by our influence!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1249
_The Fool's Interruption._—It is not a misanthrope who has written this book: the hatred of men costs too dear to-day. To hate as they formerly hated _man_, in the fashion of Timon, completely, without qualification, with all the heart, from the pure _love_ of hatred—for that purpose one would have to renounce contempt:—and how much refined pleasure, how much patience, how much benevolence even, do we owe to contempt!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1229
But I think that we are to-day at least far from the ludicrous immodesty of decreeing from our nook that there _can_ only be legitimate perspectives from that nook. The world, on the contrary, has once more become "infinite" to us: in so far we cannot dismiss the possibility that it _contains infinite interpretations_. Once more the great horror seizes us—but who would desire forthwith to deify once more _this_ monster of an unknown world in the old fashion?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 299
As regards the distress of the soul, however, I now look at every man with respect to whether he knows it by experience or by description; whether he still regards it as necessary to simulate this knowledge, perhaps as an indication of more refined culture; or whether, at the bottom of his heart, he does not at all believe in great sorrows of soul, and at the naming of them has in his mind a similar experience as at the naming of great corporeal sufferings, such as tooth-aches, and stomach-aches.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1159
As a matter of fact it is the more subtle and jealous thirst for possession in the man (who is rarely and tardily convinced of having this "possession"), which makes his love continue; in that case it is even possible that the love may increase after the surrender,—he does not readily own that a woman has nothing more to "surrender" to him.—
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 82
"He sinks, he falls," your scornful looks portend: The truth is, to your level he'll descend. His Too Much Joy is turned to weariness, His Too Much Light will in your darkness end.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 868
_No Picture of a Martyr._—I will take my cue from Raphael, and not paint any more martyr pictures. There are enough of sublime things without its being necessary to seek sublimity where it is linked with cruelty; moreover my ambition would not be gratified in the least if I aspired to be a sublime executioner.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 252
_The Comedy of Celebrated Men._—Celebrated men who _need_ their fame, as, for instance, all politicians, no longer select their associates and friends without after-thoughts: from the one they want a portion of the splendour and reflection of his virtues; from the other they want the fear-inspiring power of certain dubious qualities in him, of which everybody is aware; from another they steal his reputation for idleness and basking in the sun, because it is advantageous for their own ends to be regarded temporarily as heedless and lazy:—it conceals the fact that they lie in ambush; they now use the visionaries, now the experts, now the brooders, now the pedants in their neighbourhood, as their actual selves for the time, but very soon they do not need them any longer!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1281
As I made verses, never stopping, Each syllable the bird went after, Keeping in time with dainty hopping! I burst into unmeasured laughter! What, you a poet? You a poet? Can your brains truly so addled be? "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 563
And it is time to know them well and describe them well, for the pious ones of the old belief die out also; let us save their likeness and type, at least for the sake of knowledge.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1241
Or not sufficiently Saint-Simonist, not sufficiently French. A person must have been affected with a _Gallic_ excess of erotic susceptibility and amorous impatience even to approach mankind honourably with his lewdness.... Mankind! Was there ever a more hideous old woman among all old women (unless perhaps it were "the Truth": a question for philosophers)? No, we do not love Mankind!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 652
_Always in our own Society._—All that is akin to me in nature and history speaks to me, praises me, urges me forward and comforts me—: other things are unheard by me, or immediately forgotten. We are only in our own society always.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1332
From the crags I gaily greet you, Running fast I come to meet you, Dancing while you pipe and sing. How you bound across the ocean, Unimpeded, free in motion, Swifter than with boat or wing!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1015
Even the readiness with which our cleverest contemporaries get lost in wretched corners and alleys, for example, in Vaterländerei (so I designate Jingoism, called _chauvinisme_ in France, and "_deutsch_" in Germany), or in petty æsthetic creeds in the manner of Parisian _naturalisme_ (which only brings into prominence and uncovers _that_ aspect of nature which excites simultaneously disgust and astonishment—they like at present to call this aspect _la vérité vraie_), or in Nihilism in the St Petersburg style (that is to say, in the _belief in unbelief_, even to martyrdom for it):—this shows always and above all the need of belief, support, backbone, and buttress....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1195
What is Romanticism? Every art and every philosophy may be regarded as a healing and helping appliance in the service of growing, struggling life: they always presuppose suffering and sufferers.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 721
_The Polite Man._—"He is so polite!"—Yes, he has always a sop for Cerberus with him, and is so timid that he takes everybody for Cerberus, even you and me,—that is his "politeness."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1125
"Every man his own priest"—behind such formulæ and their bucolic slyness, there was concealed in Luther the profoundest hatred of "higher men" and the rule of "higher men," as the Church had conceived them. Luther disowned an ideal which he did not know how to attain, while he seemed to combat and detest the degeneration thereof.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 741
_Originality._—What is originality? To _see_ something that does not yet bear a name, that cannot yet be named, although it is before everybody's eyes. As people are usually constituted, it is the name that first makes a thing generally visible to them.—Original persons have also for the most part been the namers of things.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 170
(When one uses the expression: "The virtuous man is the happiest," it is as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as a casuistic subtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the choice: either the _least possible pain_, in short painlessness—and after all, socialists and politicians of all parties could not honourably promise more to their people,—or the _greatest possible amount of pain_, as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined delights and enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 565
The good faith in science, the prejudice in its favour, by which States are at present dominated (it was even the Church formerly), rests fundamentally on the fact that the absolute inclination and impulse has so rarely revealed itself in it, and that science is regarded _not_ as a passion, but as a condition and an "ethos." Indeed, _amour-plaisir_ of knowledge (curiosity) often enough suffices, _amour-vanité_ suffices, and habituation to it, with the afterthought of obtaining honour and bread; it even suffices for many that they do not know what to do with a surplus of leisure, except to continue reading, collecting, arranging, observing and narrating; their "scientific impulse" is their ennui.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 418
This, however, as we have said, is an error; they are only faster and louder than the actual valuers:—And who then are these?—They are the rich and the leisurely.