The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 20 of 27
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The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 183
And similarly our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old, the securely possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest landscape in which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the possession for the most part becomes smaller through possessing.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1270
that nothing will now any longer satisfy us! How could we still be content with _the man of the present day_ after such peeps, and with such a craving in our conscience and consciousness? What a pity; but it is unavoidable that we should look on the worthiest aims and hopes of the man of the present day with ill-concealed amusement, and perhaps should no longer look at them.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 515
The astral arrangement in which we live is an exception; this arrangement, and the relatively long durability which is determined by it, has again made possible the exception of exceptions, the formation of organic life. The general character of the world, on the other hand, is to all eternity chaos; not by the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the absence of order, structure, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever else our æsthetic humanities are called.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 639
_Homo poeta._—"I myself who have made this tragedy of tragedies altogether independently, in so far as it is completed; I who have first entwined the perplexities of morality about existence, and have tightened them so that only a God could unravel them—so Horace demands!—I have already in the fourth act killed all the Gods—for the sake of morality! What is now to be done about the fifth act? Where shall I get the tragic _dénouement_! Must I now think about a comic _dénouement_?"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 949
And if a suffering friend said to me, "See, I shall soon die, only promise to die with me"—I might promise it, just as—to select for once bad examples for good reasons—the sight of a small, mountain people struggling for freedom, would bring me to the point of offering them my hand and my life.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 492
But notwithstanding this practice, German must have sounded intolerably vulgar to Montaigne, and even to Racine: even at present, in the mouths of travellers among the Italian populace, it still sounds very coarse, sylvan, and hoarse, as if it had originated in smoky rooms and outlandish districts.—Now I notice that at present a similar striving after selectness of tone is spreading among the former admirers of the chancery style, and that the Germans are beginning to accommodate themselves to a peculiar "witchery of sound," which might in the long run become an actual danger to the German language,—for one may seek in vain for more execrable sounds in Europe.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 89
Good teeth and a digestion good I wish you—these you need, be sure! And, certes, if my book you've stood, Me with good humour you'll endure.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1140
One generally looks at the matter in a different manner: one is accustomed to see the _impelling_ force precisely in the aim (object, calling, &c.), according to a primeval error,—but it is only the _directing_ force; the steersman and the steam have thereby been confounded. And yet it is not even always the steersman, the directing force....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1257
The man of such a "Beyond," who wants to get even in sight of the highest standards of worth of his age, must first of all "surmount" this age in himself—it is the test of his power—and consequently not only his age, but also his past aversion and opposition _to_ his age, his suffering _caused by_ his age, his unseasonableness, his Romanticism....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 976
_To what Extent even We are still Pious._—It is said with good reason that convictions have no civic rights in the domain of science: it is only when a conviction voluntarily condescends to the modesty of an hypothesis, a preliminary standpoint for experiment, or a regulative fiction, that its access to the realm of knowledge, and a certain value therein, can be conceded,—always, however, with the restriction that it must remain under police supervision, under the police of our distrust.—Regarded more accurately, however, does not this imply that only when a conviction _ceases_ to be a conviction can it obtain admission into science?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1181
My melancholy would fain rest its head in the hiding-places and abysses of _perfection_: for this reason I need music. What do I care for the drama! What do I care for the spasms of its moral ecstasies, in which the "people" have their satisfaction! What do I care for the whole pantomimic hocus-pocus of the actor!...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 769
_Knowing how to Find the End._—Masters of the first rank are recognised by knowing in a perfect manner how to find the end, in the whole as well as in the part; be it the end of a melody or of a thought, be it the fifth act of a tragedy or of a state affair. The masters of the second degree always become restless towards the end, and seldom dip down into the sea with such proud, quiet equilibrium as, for example, the mountain-ridge at _Porto fino_—where the Bay of Genoa sings its melody to an end.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1114
No! The Germans of to-day are _not_ pessimists! And Schopenhauer was a pessimist, I repeat it once more, as a good European, and _not_ as a German.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 159
_A Species of Atavism._—I like best to think of the rare men of an age as suddenly emerging aftershoots of past cultures, and of their persistent strength: like the atavism of a people and its civilisation:—there is thus still something in them to _think of_!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1330
Then one, dear friend, was swiftly changed to twain, And Zarathustra left my teeming brain....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1031
That our modern natural sciences have entangled themselves so much with Spinoza's dogma (finally and most grossly in Darwinism, with its inconceivably one-sided doctrine of the "struggle for existence"—), is probably owing to the origin of most of the inquirers into nature: they belong in this respect to the people, their forefathers have been poor and humble persons, who knew too well by immediate experience the difficulty of making a living.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 625
_Question and Answer._—What do savage tribes at present accept first of all from Europeans? Brandy and Christianity, the European narcotics.—And by what means are they fastest ruined?—By the European narcotics.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1325
Hence, music! First let darker shadows come, And grow, and merge into brown, mellow night! 'Tis early for your pealing, ere the dome Sparkle in roseate glory, gold-bedight While yet 'tis day, there's time For strolling, lonely muttering, forging rhyme— My bliss! My bliss!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 493
Something mocking, cold, indifferent, and careless in the voice: that is what at present sounds "noble" to the Germans—and I hear the approval of this nobleness in the voices of young officials, teachers, women, and trades-people; indeed, even the little girls already imitate this German of the officers.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1060
It seems to me, however, to be so in relation to whole races and successions of generations: where necessity and need have long compelled men to communicate with their fellows and understand one another rapidly and subtly, a surplus of the power and art of communication is at last acquired, as if it were a fortune which had gradually accumulated, and now waited for an heir to squander it prodigally (the so-called artists are these heirs, in like manner the orators, preachers, and authors: all of them men who come at the end of a long succession, "late-born" always, in the best sense of the word, and as has been said, _squanderers_ by their very nature).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 125
It must be a disease of the reason with which the noble affection is associated,"—so they think, and they look depreciatingly thereon; just as they depreciate the joy which the lunatic derives from his fixed idea. The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse: not to be tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses—that is its wisdom and inspiration.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 706
_Poet and Liar._—The poet sees in the liar his foster-brother whose milk he has drunk up; the latter has thus remained wretched, and has not even attained to a good conscience.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1294
The Church has ken of living, And tests by heart and face. To me she'll be forgiving! Who will not show me grace? I lisp with pretty halting, I curtsey, bid "good day," And with the fresh defaulting I wash the old away!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 102
Even the most hurtful man is still perhaps, in respect to the conservation of the race, the most useful of all; for he conserves in himself or by his effect on others, impulses without which mankind might long ago have languished or decayed.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 141
He who feels himself dishonoured at the thought of being the _instrument_ of a prince, or of a party and sect, or even of wealthy power (for example, as the descendant of a proud, ancient family), but wishes just to be this instrument, or must be so before himself and before the public—such a person has need of pathetic principles which can at all times be appealed to:—principles of an unconditional _ought_, to which a person can subject himself without shame, and can show himself subjected.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 855
We deny, and must deny, because something in us _wants_ to live and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do not as yet know, do not as yet see!—So much in favour of criticism.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 900
Thinking is done with a stop-watch, as dining is done with the eyes fixed on the financial newspaper; we live like men who are continually "afraid of letting opportunities slip." "Better do anything whatever, than nothing"—this principle also is a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled. And just as all form obviously disappears in this hurry of workers, so the sense for form itself, the ear and the eye for the melody of movement, also disappear.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 533
It was just so (in order that the conception of substance might originate, this being indispensable to logic, although in the strictest sense nothing actual corresponds to it) that for a long period the changing process in things had to be overlooked, and remain unperceived; the beings not seeing correctly had an advantage over those who saw everything "in flux." In itself every high degree of circumspection in conclusions, every sceptical inclination, is a great danger to life.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 359
_Saintly Cruelty._—A man holding a newly born child in his hands came to a saint. "What should I do with the child," he asked, "it is wretched, deformed, and has not even enough of life to die." "Kill it," cried the saint with a dreadful voice, "kill it, and then hold it in thy arms for three days and three nights to brand it on thy memory:—thus wilt thou never again beget a child when it is not the time for thee to beget."—When the man had heard this he went away disappointed; and many found fault with the saint because he had advised cruelty, for he had advised to kill the child. "But is it not more cruel to let it live?" asked the saint.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 591
_The Conditions for God._—"God himself cannot subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist without unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 400
In fact, they conquered when they translated,—not only in that they omitted the historical: no, they added also allusions to the present; above all, they struck out the name of the poet and put their own in its place—not with the feeling of theft, but with the very best conscience of the _imperium Romanum_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 510
It would be _backsliding_ for us, with our susceptible integrity, to lapse entirely into morality, and actually become virtuous monsters and scarecrows, on account of the over-strict requirements which we here lay down for ourselves. We ought also to _be able_ to stand _above_ morality, and not only stand with the painful stiffness of one who every moment fears to slip and fall, but we should also be able to soar and play above it!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 310
_The Consciousness of Appearance._—How wonderfully and novelly, and at the same time how awfully and ironically, do I feel myself situated with respect to collective existence, with my knowledge!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1093
Is there reason to think that a person of the Latin race would not readily have stumbled on this reversal of the apparent?—for it is a reversal. Let us call to mind secondly, the immense note of interrogation which _Kant_ wrote after the notion of causality. Not that he at all doubted its legitimacy, like Hume: on the contrary, he began cautiously to define the domain within which this notion has significance generally (we have not even yet got finished with the marking out of these limits).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1111
But further, are we perhaps to reckon to the honour of Germans, the old humming-top, Bahnsen, who all his life spun about with the greatest pleasure around his realistically dialectic misery and "personal ill-luck,"—was _that_ German? (In passing I recommend his writings for the purpose for which I myself have used them, as anti-pessimistic fare, especially on account of his _elegantia psychologica_, which, it seems to me, could alleviate even the most constipated body and soul).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1094
Let us take thirdly, the astonishing hit of _Hegel_, who stuck at no logical usage or fastidiousness when he ventured to teach that the conceptions of kinds develop _out of one another_: with which theory the thinkers in Europe were prepared for the last great scientific movement, for Darwinism—for without Hegel there would have been no Darwin. Is there anything German in this Hegelian innovation which first introduced the decisive conception of evolution into science?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 234
The individuals, as is well known, the men who only live for themselves, provide for the moment more than do their opposites, the gregarious men, because they consider themselves just as incalculable as the future; and similarly they attach themselves willingly to despots, because they believe themselves capable of activities and expedients, which can neither reckon on being understood by the multitude, nor on finding favour with them,—but the tyrant or the Cæsar understands the rights of the Individual even in his excesses, and has an interest in speaking on behalf of a bolder private morality, and even in giving his hand to it.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 494
For the officer, and in fact the Prussian officer is the inventor of these tones: this same officer, who, as soldier and professional man possesses that admirable tact for modesty which the Germans as a whole might well imitate (German professors and musicians included!). But as soon as he speaks and moves he is the most immodest and inelegant figure in old Europe—no doubt unconsciously to himself!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1102
The non-divinity of existence was regarded by him as something understood, palpable, indisputable; he always lost his philosophical composure and got into a passion when he saw anyone hesitate and beat about the bush here.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1100
On the contrary, it has to be ascribed precisely to the Germans—those with whom Schopenhauer was contemporary,—that they delayed this victory of atheism longest, and endangered it most.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 60
Many men's minds I know full well, Yet what mine own is, cannot tell. I cannot see—my eye's too near— And falsely to myself appear. 'Twould be to me a benefit Far from myself if I could sit, Less distant than my enemy, And yet my nearest friend's too nigh— 'Twixt him and me, just in the middle! What do I ask for? Guess my riddle!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 820
_Ability to Contradict._—Everyone knows at present that the ability to endure contradiction is a high indication of culture. Some people even know that the higher man courts opposition, and provokes it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto unknown partiality. But the _ability_ to contradict, the attainment of _good_ conscience in hostility to the accustomed, the traditional and the hallowed,—that is more than both the above-named abilities, and is the really great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the step of all steps of the emancipated intellect: who knows that?—
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 829
_Illusion of the Contemplative._—Higher men are distinguished from lower, by seeing and hearing immensely more, and in a thoughtful manner—and it is precisely this that distinguishes man from the animal, and the higher animal from the lower.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1236
We are unfavourable to all ideals which could make us feel at home in this frail, broken-down, transition period; and as regards the "realities" thereof, we do not believe in their _endurance_. The ice which still carries us has become very thin: the thawing wind blows; we ourselves, the homeless ones, are an influence that breaks the ice, and the other all too thin "realities."...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 363
Incipient _insanity_ has hovered, and hovers continually over mankind as its greatest danger: that is precisely the breaking out of inclination in feeling, seeing, and hearing; the enjoyment of the unruliness of the mind; the delight in human unreason. It is not truth and certainty that is the antithesis of the world of the insane, but the universality and all-obligatoriness of a belief, in short, non-voluntariness in forming opinions.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 792
They have _lived_ and have wanted to live on—they say so with their houses, built and decorated for centuries, and not for the passing hour: they were well disposed to life, however ill-disposed they may often have been towards themselves.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 681
_Laughable!_—See! See! He runs _away_ from men—: they follow him, however, because he runs _before_ them,—they are such a gregarious lot!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 880
Was my will directly opposed to all deception of the senses, and courageous in its defence against fantastic notions?"—None of them ever asked these questions, nor to this day do any of the good religious people ask them. They have rather a thirst for things which are _contrary to reason_, and they don't want to have too much difficulty in satisfying this thirst,—so they experience "miracles" and "regenerations," and hear the voices of angels!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 244
_What is Living?_—Living—that is to continually eliminate from ourselves what is about to die; Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves. Living—that means, therefore, to be without piety toward the dying, the wretched and the old? To be continually a murderer?—And yet old Moses said: "Thou shalt not kill!"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 773
For believe me!—the secret of realising the largest productivity and the greatest enjoyment of existence is _to live in danger_! Build your cities on the slope of Vesuvius! Send your ships into unexplored seas! Live in war with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and spoilers, ye knowing ones, as long as ye cannot be rulers and possessor! The time will soon pass when you can be satisfied to live like timorous deer concealed in the forests.