The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 22 of 27
License: Public Domain
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1212
Those former philosophers, on the contrary, thought that the senses lured them out of _their_ world, the cold realm of "ideas," to a dangerous southern island, where they were afraid that their philosopher-virtues would melt away like snow in the sun.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 616
There was then only one norm, "the man"—and every people believed that it _had_ this one and ultimate norm. But above himself, and outside of himself, in a distant over-world, a person could see a _multitude of norms_: the one God was not the denial or blasphemy of the other Gods! It was here that individuals were first permitted, it was here that the right of individuals was first respected.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 925
And to be brief: if you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general always originated_, would make you tired of these pathetic words,—as you have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance "sin," "salvation," and "redemption."—And now, my friend, do not talk to me about the categorical imperative!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1297
Thoughts of rest I 'gan forswear, Rose and walked along the strand, Found, in warm and moonlit air, Man and boat upon the sand, Drowsy both, and drowsily Did the boat put out to sea.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 193
But I give the moral before the story.—We were once on a time so near one another in the course of our lives, that nothing more seemed to hinder our friendship and fraternity, and there was merely a small plank between us. While you were just about to step on it, I asked you: "Do you want to come across the plank to me?" But then you did not want to come any longer; and when I again entreated, you were silent.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1121
He unravelled, he tore asunder with honest rage, where the old spider had woven longest and most carefully. He gave the sacred books into the hands of everyone,—they thereby got at last into the hands of the philologists, that is to say, the annihilators of every belief based upon books.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 731
_The Sigh of the Seeker of Knowledge._—"Oh, my covetousness! In this soul there is no disinterestedness—but an all-desiring self, which, by means of many individuals, would fain see as with _its own_ eyes, and grasp as with _its own_ hands—a self bringing back even the entire past, and wanting to lose nothing that could in any way belong to it! Oh, this flame of my covetousness! Oh, that I were reincarnated in a hundred individuals!"—He who does not know this sigh by experience, does not know the passion of the seeker of knowledge either.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 198
His pride was puffed up when he considered that even the mightiest of the earth were thus to be looked upon as slaves. This pride is also unfamiliar to us, and impossible; the word "slave" has not its full force for us even in simile.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 795
Everyone won for himself his home once more by over-powering it with his architectural thoughts, and by transforming it into a delightful sight for his race. When we consider the mode of building cities in the north, the law and the general delight in legality and obedience, impose upon us: we thereby divine the propensity to equality and submission which must have ruled in those builders.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 289
_Epicurus._—Yes, I am proud of perceiving the character of Epicurus differently from anyone else perhaps, and of enjoying the happiness of the afternoon of antiquity in all that I hear and read of him:—I see his eye gazing out on a broad whitish sea, over the shore-rocks on which the sunshine rests, while great and small creatures play in its light, secure and calm like this light and that eye itself. Such happiness could only have been devised by a chronic sufferer, the happiness of an eye before which the sea of existence has become calm, and which can no longer tire of gazing at the surface and at the variegated, tender, tremulous skin of this sea. Never previously was there such a moderation of voluptuousness.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 825
_Prelude to Science._—Do you believe then that the sciences would have arisen and grown up if the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches had not been their forerunners; those who, with their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to create a thirst, a hunger, and a taste for _hidden and forbidden_ powers? Yea, that infinitely more had to be _promised_ than could ever be fulfilled, in order that something might be fulfilled in the domain of knowledge?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 280
But still there are rarer men who would rather perish than work without _delight_ in their labour: the fastidious people, difficult to satisfy, whose object is not served by an abundant profit, unless the work itself be the reward of all rewards. Artists and contemplative men of all kinds belong to this rare species of human beings; and also the idlers who spend their life in hunting and travelling, or in love affairs and adventures.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1283
Like to an arrow, methinks, a verse is, See how it quivers, pricks and smarts When shot full straight (no tender mercies!) Into the reptile's nobler parts! Wretches, you die at the hand of the poet, Or stagger like men that have drunk too free. "Yes, yes, good sir, you are a poet," Chirped out the pecker, mocking me.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 62
"No longer path! Abyss and silence chilling!" Thy fault! To leave the path thou wast too willing! Now comes the test! Keep cool—eyes bright and clear! Thou'rt lost for sure, if thou permittest—fear.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 614
_The Greatest Utility of Polytheism._—For the individual to set up his _own_ ideal and derive from it his laws, his pleasures and his rights—_that_ has perhaps been hitherto regarded as the most monstrous of all human aberrations, and as idolatry in itself; in fact, the few who have ventured to do this have always needed to apologise to themselves, usually in this wise: "Not I! not I!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 679
_Kant's Joke._—Kant tried to prove, in a way that dismayed "everybody," that "everybody" was in the right:—that was his secret joke. He wrote against the learned, in favour of popular prejudice; he wrote, however, for the learned and not for the people.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 784
The evil man, also, the unfortunate man, and the exceptional man, shall each have his philosophy, his rights, and his sunshine! It is not sympathy with them that is necessary!—we must unlearn this arrogant fancy, notwithstanding that humanity has so long learned it and used it exclusively—we have not to set up any confessor, exorcist, or pardoner for them! It is a new _justice_, however, that is necessary! And a new solution! And new philosophers! The moral earth also is round!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1342
This poem is a parody of the "Chorus Mysticus" which concludes the second part of Goethe's "Faust." Bayard Taylor's translation of the passage in "Faust" runs as follows:—
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1036
Protestantism was a popular insurrection in favour of the simple, the respectable, the superficial (the North has always been more good-natured and more shallow than the South), but it was the French Revolution that first gave the sceptre wholly and solemnly into the hands of the "good man" (the sheep, the ass, the goose, and everything incurably shallow, bawling, and fit for the Bedlam of "modern ideas").
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 337
As a ghost-like, calm, gazing, gliding, sweeping, neutral being? Similar to the ship, which, with its white sails, like an immense butterfly, passes over the dark sea! Yes! Passing _over_ existence! That is it! That would be it!——It seems that the noise here has made me a visionary? All great noise causes one to place happiness in the calm and the distance.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1250
Moreover we are thereby the "elect of God": refined contempt is our taste and privilege, our art, our virtue perhaps, we, the most modern amongst the moderns!... Hatred, on the contrary, makes equal, it puts men face to face, in hatred there is honour; finally, in hatred there is _fear_, quite a large amount of fear. We fearless ones, however, we, the most intellectual men of the period, know our advantage well enough to live without fear as the most intellectual persons of this age.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 24
It will be surmised that I should not like to take leave ungratefully of that period of severe sickness, the advantage of which is not even yet exhausted in me: for I am sufficiently conscious of what I have in advance of the spiritually robust generally, in my changeful state of health.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 875
_Wisdom in Pain._—In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not so, pain would long ago have been done away with; that it is hurtful is no argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very essence.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1072
_The Origin of our Conception of "Knowledge."_—I take this explanation from the street. I heard one of the people saying that "he knew me," so I asked myself: What do the people really understand by knowledge? What do they want when they seek "knowledge"? Nothing more than that what is strange is to be traced back to something _known_. And we philosophers—have we really understood _anything more_ by knowledge?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 123
_Noble and Ignoble._—To ignoble natures all noble, magnanimous sentiments appear inexpedient, and on that account first and foremost, as incredible: they blink with their eyes when they hear of such matters, and seem inclined to say, "there will, no doubt, be some advantage therefrom, one cannot see through all walls;"—they are jealous of the noble person, as if he sought advantage by back-stair methods.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1255
That one _wants_ in fact to get outside, or aloft, is perhaps a sort of madness, a peculiarly unreasonable "thou must"—for even we thinkers have our idiosyncrasies of "unfree will"—: the question is whether one _can_ really get there.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 627
_The Failure of Reformations._—It testifies to the higher culture of the Greeks, even in rather early ages, that attempts to establish new Grecian religions frequently failed; it testifies that quite early there must have been a multitude of dissimilar individuals in Greece, whose dissimilar troubles were not cured by a single recipe of faith and hope.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 442
_Chamfort._—That such a judge of men and of the multitude as Chamfort should side with the multitude, instead of standing apart in philosophical resignation and defence—I am at a loss to explain, except as follows:—There was an instinct in him stronger than his wisdom, and it had never been gratified: the hatred against all _noblesse_ of blood; perhaps his mother's old and only too explicable hatred, which was consecrated in him by love of her,—an instinct of revenge from his boyhood, which waited for the hour to avenge his mother.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1041
Here there exists a great need: for sewers and pure cleansing waters are required also for spiritual filth, and rapid currents of love are needed, and strong, lowly, pure hearts, who qualify and sacrifice themselves for such service of the non-public health department—for it _is_ a sacrificing, the priest is, and continues to be, a human sacrifice....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 917
But that the case of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the manner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 629
Every time that the Reformation of an entire people fails and only sects raise their heads, one may conclude that the people already contains many types, and has begun to free itself from the gross herding instincts and the morality of custom,—a momentous state of suspense, which one is accustomed to disparage as decay of morals and corruption, while it announces the maturing of the egg and the early rupture of the shell.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 403
In the old times which called poetry into being, people had still utility in view with respect to it, and a very important utility—at the time when rhythm was introduced into speech, the force which arranges all the particles of the sentence anew, commands the choosing of the words, recolours the thought, and makes it more obscure, more foreign, and more distant: to be sure a _superstitious utility_!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1201
But when looked at more carefully, both these kinds of desire prove themselves ambiguous, and are explicable precisely according to the before-mentioned and, as it seems to me, rightly preferred scheme.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 609
_The Error of Christ._—The founder of Christianity thought there was nothing from which men suffered so much as from their sins:—it was his error, the error of him who felt himself without sin, to whom experience was lacking in this respect! It was thus that his soul filled with that marvellous, fantastic pity which had reference to a trouble that even among his own people, the inventors of sin, was rarely a great trouble! But Christians understood subsequently how to do justice to their master, and to sanctify his error into a "truth."
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1319
Pour poppies now, Pour venom, Fever, on my brain! Too long you test my hand and brow: What ask you? "What—reward is paid?" A malediction on you, jade, And your disdain!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 605
_The Chosen People._—The Jews, who regard themselves as the chosen people among the nations, and that too because they are the moral genius among the nations (in virtue of their capacity for _despising_ the human in themselves _more_ than any other people)—the Jews have a pleasure in their divine monarch and saint similar to that which the French nobility had in Louis XIV.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 10
This track of desert, exhaustion, unbelief, and frigidity in the midst of youth, this advent of grey hairs at the wrong time, this tyranny of pain, surpassed, however, by the tyranny of pride which repudiated the _consequences_ of pain—and consequences are comforts,—this radical isolation, as defence against the contempt of mankind become morbidly clairvoyant, this restriction upon principle to all that is bitter, sharp, and painful in knowledge, as prescribed by the _disgust_ which had gradually resulted from imprudent spiritual diet and pampering—it is called Romanticism,—oh, who could realise all those feelings of mine!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 56
Brother, to puff thyself up ne'er be quick: For burst thou shalt be by a tiny prick!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1205
The latter is _romantic pessimism_ in its most extreme form, whether it be as Schopenhauerian will-philosophy, or as Wagnerian music:—romantic pessimism, the last _great_ event in the destiny of our civilisation.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 247
_Injuring with one's best Qualities._—Our strong points sometimes drive us so far forward that we cannot any longer endure our weaknesses, and we perish by them: we also perhaps see this result beforehand, but nevertheless do not want it to be otherwise. We then become hard towards that which would fain be spared in us, and our pitilessness is also our greatness.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 697
_The Way to Happiness._—A sage asked of a fool the way to happiness. The fool answered without delay, like one who had been asked the way to the next town: "Admire yourself, and live on the street!" "Hold," cried the sage, "you require too much; it suffices to admire oneself!" The fool replied: "But how can one constantly admire without constantly despising?"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 290
_Our Astonishment._—There is a profound and fundamental satisfaction in the fact that science ascertains things that _hold their ground_, and again furnish the basis for new researches:—it could certainly be otherwise. Indeed, we are so much convinced of all the uncertainty and caprice of our judgments, and of the everlasting change of all human laws and conceptions, that we are really astonished _how persistently_ the results of science hold their ground!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 962
Or hast thou once experienced a tremendous moment in which thou wouldst answer him: "Thou art a God, and never did I hear aught more divine!" If that thought acquired power over thee, as thou art, it would transform thee, and perhaps crush thee; the question with regard to all and everything: "Dost thou want this once more, and also for innumerable times?" would lie as the heaviest burden upon thy activity!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 904
_Work_ is winning over more and more the good conscience to its side: the desire for enjoyment already calls itself "need of recreation," and even begins to be ashamed of itself. "One owes it to one's health," people say, when they are caught at a picnic. Indeed, it might soon go so far that one could not yield to the desire for the _vita contemplativa_ (that is to say, excursions with thoughts and friends), without self-contempt and a bad conscience.—Well!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 149
All that up till now has been considered as the "conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion and superstition in this consideration—have they been investigated to the end?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 2
"The Joyful Wisdom," written in 1882, just before "Zarathustra," is rightly judged to be one of Nietzsche's best books. Here the essentially grave and masculine face of the poet-philosopher is seen to light up and suddenly break into a delightful smile. The warmth and kindness that beam from his features will astonish those hasty psychologists who have never divined that behind the destroyer is the creator, and behind the blasphemer the lover of life.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 953
_Vita femina._—To see the ultimate beauties in a work—all knowledge and good-will is not enough; it requires the rarest, good chance for the veil of clouds to move for once from the summits, and for the sun to shine on them. We must not only stand at precisely the right place to see this, our very soul itself must have pulled away the veil from its heights, and must be in need of an external expression and simile, so as to have a support and remain master of itself.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1271
Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal, full of danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we do not so readily acknowledge any one's _right thereto_: the ideal of a spirit who plays naïvely (that is to say involuntarily and from overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been called holy, good, inviolable, divine; to whom the loftiest conception which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often enough appear _inhuman_, for example, when put by the side of all past seriousness on earth, and in comparison with all past solemnities in bearing, word, tone, look, morality and pursuit, as their truest involuntary parody,— but with which, nevertheless, perhaps _the great seriousness_ only commences, the proper interrogation mark is set up, the fate of the soul changes, the hour-hand moves, and tragedy _begins_....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 959
He had merely put on a good demeanour towards life, and had all along concealed his ultimate judgment, his profoundest sentiment! Socrates, Socrates _had suffered from life_! And he also took his revenge for it—with that veiled, fearful, pious, and blasphemous phrase! Had even a Socrates to revenge himself? Was there a grain too little of magnanimity in his superabundant virtue? Ah, my friends! We must surpass even the Greeks!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 94
The pen is scratching: hang the pen! To scratching I'm condemned to sink! I grasp the inkstand fiercely then And write in floods of flowing ink. How broad, how full the stream's career! What luck my labours doth requite! 'Tis true, the writing's none too clear— What then? Who reads the stuff I write?