The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Friedrich Nietzsche
1,346 passages indexed from The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza) (Friedrich Nietzsche) — Page 23 of 27
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The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 889
_Physicians of the Soul and Pain._—All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 281
They all seek toil and trouble in so far as these are associated with pleasure, and they want the severest and hardest labour, if it be necessary. In other respects, however, they have a resolute indolence, even should impoverishment, dishonour, and danger to health and life be associated therewith. They are not so much afraid of ennui as of labour without pleasure; indeed they require much ennui, if _their_ work is to succeed with them.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 197
A being who has not the free disposal of himself and has not got leisure,—that is not regarded by us as anything contemptible; there is perhaps too much of this kind of slavishness in each of us, in accordance with the conditions of our social order and activity, which are fundamentally different from those of the ancients.—The Greek philosopher went through life with the secret feeling that there were many more slaves than people supposed—that is to say, that every one was a slave who was not a philosopher.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 408
First of all, it was by driving the frenzy and wantonness of their emotions to the highest pitch, by making the furious mad, and the revengeful intoxicated with vengeance:—all the orgiastic cults seek to discharge the _ferocia_ of a deity all at once and thus make an orgy, so that the deity may feel freer and quieter afterwards, and leave man in peace.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1253
_"The Wanderer" Speaks._—In order for once to get a glimpse of our European morality from a distance, in order to compare it with other earlier or future moralities, one must do as the traveller who wants to know the height of the towers of a city: for that purpose he _leaves_ the city.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 618
Monotheism, on the contrary, the rigid consequence of the doctrine of one normal human being—consequently the belief in a normal God, beside whom there are only false, spurious Gods—has perhaps been the greatest danger of mankind in the past: man was then threatened by that premature state of inertia, which, so far as we can see, most of the other species of animals reached long ago, as creatures who all believe in one normal animal and ideal in their species, and definitely translated their morality of custom into flesh and blood.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1025
One recognises the sons of Protestant clergymen and schoolmasters by the naïve assurance with which as learned men they already assume their case to be proved, when it has but been presented by them staunchly and warmly: they are thoroughly accustomed to people _believing_ in them,—it belonged to their fathers' "trade"! A Jew, contrariwise, in accordance with his business surroundings and the past of his race, is least of all accustomed—to people believing him.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1287
I gaze on the ocean asleep, On the purple sail of a boat; On the harbour and tower steep, On the rocks that stand out of the deep, In the South!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1216
What is _amor_, what is _deus_, when they have lost every drop of blood?...) _In summa_: all philosophical idealism has hitherto been something like a disease, where it has not been, as in the case of Plato, the prudence of superabundant and dangerous healthfulness, the fear of _overpowerful_ senses, and the wisdom of a wise Socratic.—Perhaps, is it the case that we moderns are merely not sufficiently sound _to require_ Plato's idealism? And we do not fear the senses because——.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 315
Certainly not that he does something for others and without selfishness; perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons.—But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts to men and things.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 287
Wives had actually been punished by death who were surprised taking wine: and certainly not merely because women under the influence of wine sometimes unlearn altogether the art of saying No; the Romans were afraid above all things of the orgiastic and Dionysian spirit with which the women of Southern Europe at that time (when wine was still new in Europe) were sometimes visited, as by a monstrous foreignness which subverted the basis of Roman sentiments; it seemed to them treason against Rome, as the embodiment of foreignness.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 220
The day and the dance commence, and we do not know our rounds! We must then improvise,—all the world improvises its day. To-day, let us for once do like all the world!—And therewith vanished my wonderful morning dream, probably owing to the violent strokes of the tower-clock, which just then announced the fifth hour with all the importance which is peculiar to it.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1182
It will now be divined that I am essentially anti-theatrical at heart,—but Wagner on the contrary, was essentially a man of the stage and an actor, the most enthusiastic mummer-worshipper that has ever existed, even among musicians!...
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 97
Your life is half-way o'er; That hour by hour was pain and error sheer: _Why stay?_ What seek you more? "That's what I'm seeking—reasons why I'm here!"
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 412
According as the formula is pronounced with literal and rhythmical correctness, it determines the future: the formula, however, is the invention of Apollo, who as the God of rhythm, can also determine the goddesses of fate.—Looked at and investigated as a whole, was there ever anything _more serviceable_ to the ancient superstitious species of human being than rhythm?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 489
To write in the chancery style, that was to write in court and government style,—that was regarded as something select compared with the language of the city in which a person lived. People gradually drew this inference, and spoke also as they wrote,—they thus became still more select in the forms of their words, in the choice of their terms and modes of expression, and finally also in their tones: they affected a court tone when they spoke, and the affectation at last became natural.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 138
_Unconditional Duties._—All men who feel that they need the strongest words and intonations, the most eloquent gestures and attitudes, in order to operate _at all_—revolutionary politicians, socialists, preachers of repentance with or without Christianity, with all of whom there must be no mere half-success,—all these speak of "duties," and indeed, always of duties, which have the character of being unconditional—without such they would have no right to their excessive pathos: they know that right well!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 937
He who knows how to regard the history of man in its entirety as _his own history_, feels in the immense generalisation all the grief of the invalid who thinks of health, of the old man who thinks of the dream of his youth, of the lover who is robbed of his beloved, of the martyr whose ideal is destroyed, of the hero on the evening of the indecisive battle which has brought him wounds and the loss of a friend.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 372
So let all this masquerade run along in the melodies and cadences, in the leaps and merriment of the rhythm of these operas! Quite the ancient life! What does one understand of it, if one does not understand the delight in the masque, the good conscience of all masquerade!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1310
Souls that lack determination Rouse my wrath to white-hot flame! All their glory's but vexation, All their praise but self-contempt and shame!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 30
Confidence in life is gone: life itself has become a _problem_.—Let it not be imagined that one has necessarily become a hypochondriac thereby! Even love of life is still possible—only one loves differently. It is the love of a woman of whom one is doubtful....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 911
We, to whose consciousness only the closing reconciliation scenes and final settling of accounts of these long processes manifest themselves, think on that account that _intelligere_ is something conciliating, just and good, something essentially antithetical to the impulses; whereas it is only _a certain relation of the impulses to one another_.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 14
With the one it is his defects which philosophise, with the other it is his riches and powers. The former _requires_ his philosophy, whether it be as support, sedative, or medicine, as salvation, elevation, or self-alienation; with the latter it is merely a fine luxury, at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude, which must inscribe itself ultimately in cosmic capitals on the heaven of ideas.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1185
We leave ourselves at home when we go to the theatre; we there renounce the right to our own tongue and choice, to our taste, and even to our courage as we possess it and practise it within our own four walls in relation to God and man.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 983
Thus—the belief in science, which now undeniably exists, cannot have had its origin in such a utilitarian calculation, but rather _in spite of_ the fact of the inutility and dangerousness of the "Will to truth," of "truth at all costs," being continually demonstrated.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1074
Is it not possible that the rejoicing of the discerner should be just his rejoicing in the regained feeling of security?... One philosopher imagined the world "known" when he had traced it back to the "idea": alas, was it not because the idea was so known, so familiar to him? because he had so much less fear of the "idea"—Oh, this moderation of the discerners! let us but look at their principles, and at their solutions of the riddle of the world in this connection!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 569
_In the Horizon of the Infinite._—We have left the land and have gone aboard ship! We have broken down the bridge behind us,—nay, more, the land behind us! Well, little ship! look out! Beside thee is the ocean; it is true it does not always roar, and sometimes it spreads out like silk and gold and a gentle reverie. But times will come when thou wilt feel that it is infinite, and that there is nothing more frightful than infinity. Oh, the poor bird that felt itself free, and now strikes against the walls of this cage! Alas, if homesickness for the land should attack thee, as if there had been more _freedom_ there,—and there is no "land" any longer!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 68
I hate to follow and I hate to lead. Obedience? no! and ruling? no, indeed! Wouldst fearful be in others' sight? Then e'en _thyself_ thou must affright: The people but the Terror's guidance heed. I hate to guide myself, I hate the fray. Like the wild beasts I'll wander far afield. In Error's pleasing toils I'll roam Awhile, then lure myself back home, Back home, and—to my self-seduction yield.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1087
this fact will be hushed up for some considerable time to come!—that which from henceforth will no longer be built, and _can_ no longer be built, is—a society in the old sense of the term; to build this structure everything is lacking, above all, the material. _None of us are any longer material for a society_: that is a truth which is seasonable at present!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 567
If one may deduce from his words what is remarkable enough for such a lover of art, that he places science above art, it is after all, however, only from politeness that he omits to speak of that which he places high above all science: the "revealed truth," and the "eternal salvation of the soul,"—what are ornament, pride, entertainment and security of life to him, in comparison thereto?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 509
And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate depth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us so much good as the _fool's cap and bells_: we need them in presence of ourselves—we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish and blessed Art, in order not to lose the _free dominion over things_ which our ideal demands of us.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 955
The Greeks indeed prayed: "Twice and thrice, everything beautiful!" Ah, they had their good reason to call on the Gods, for ungodly actuality does not furnish us with the beautiful at all, or only does so once! I mean to say that the world is overfull of beautiful things, but it is nevertheless poor, very poor, in beautiful moments, and in the unveiling of those beautiful things.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1269
He whose soul longs to experience the whole range of hitherto recognised values and desirabilities, and to circumnavigate all the coasts of this ideal "Mediterranean Sea," who, from the adventures of his most personal experience, wants to know how it feels to be a conqueror, and discoverer of the ideal—as likewise how it is with the artist, the saint, the legislator, the sage, the scholar, the devotee, the prophet, and the godly Nonconformist of the old style:—requires one thing above all for that purpose, _great healthiness_—such healthiness as one not only possesses, but also constantly acquires and must acquire, because one continually sacrifices it again, and must sacrifice it!—And now, after having been long on the way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, who are more courageous perhaps than prudent, and often enough shipwrecked and brought to grief, nevertheless, as said above, healthier than people would like to admit, dangerously healthy, always healthy again,—it would seem, as if in recompense for it all, that we have a still undiscovered country before us, the boundaries of which no one has yet seen, a beyond to all countries and corners of the ideal known hitherto, a world so over-rich in the beautiful, the strange, the questionable, the frightful, and the divine, that our curiosity as well as our thirst for possession thereof, have got out of hand—alas!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1305
She promised, made the cross-sign, too, Could her vows be hollow? Or runs she after all that woo, Like the goats I follow?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 195
_Motivation of Poverty._—We cannot, to be sure, by any artifice make a rich and richly-flowing virtue out of a poor one, but we can gracefully enough reinterpret its poverty into necessity, so that its aspect no longer gives pain to us, and we do not make any reproachful faces at fate on account of it. It is thus that the wise gardener does, who puts the tiny streamlet of his garden into the arms of a fountain-nymph, and thus motivates the poverty:—and who would not like him need the nymphs!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 58
If I explain my wisdom, surely 'Tis but entangled more securely, I can't expound myself aright: But he that's boldly up and doing, His own unaided course pursuing, Upon my image casts more light!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 763
We are two ships, each of which has its goal and its course; we may, to be sure, cross one another in our paths, and celebrate a feast together as we did before,—and then the gallant ships lay quietly in one harbour, and in one sunshine, so that it might have been thought they were already at their goal, and that they had had one goal.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 322
_To the Realists._—Ye sober beings, who feel yourselves armed against passion and fantasy, and would gladly make a pride and an ornament out of your emptiness, ye call yourselves realists and give to understand that the world is actually constituted as it appears to you; before you alone reality stands unveiled, and ye yourselves would perhaps be the best part of it,—oh, ye dear images of Sais!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 369
_The Animal with good Conscience._—It is not unknown to me that there is vulgarity in everything that pleases Southern Europe—whether it be Italian opera (for example, Rossini's and Bellini's), or the Spanish adventure-romance (most readily accessible to us in the French garb of Gil Blas)—but it does not offend me, any more than the vulgarity which one encounters in a walk through Pompeii, or even in the reading of every ancient book: what is the reason of this?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 725
_Work and Artist._—This artist is ambitious and nothing more; ultimately, however, his work is only a magnifying glass, which he offers to every one who looks in his direction.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 394
In good society one must never want to be in the right absolutely and solely, as all pure logic requires; hence, the little dose of irrationality in all French _esprit_.—The social sense of the Greeks was far less developed than that of the French in the present and the past; hence, so little _esprit_ in their cleverest men, hence, so little wit, even in their wags, hence—alas!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1208
People confound us with others—the reason of it is that we ourselves grow, we change continually, we cast off old bark, we still slough every spring, we always become younger, higher, stronger, as men of the future, we thrust our roots always more powerfully into the deep—into evil—, while at the same time we embrace the heavens ever more lovingly, more extensively, and suck in their light ever more eagerly with all our branches and leaves.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1220
But the _fact_ that something has to be taken by him as his highest hope, which is regarded, and may well be regarded, by others merely as a distasteful possibility, is a note of interrogation which Spencer could not have foreseen....
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1202
The desire for _destruction_, change and becoming, may be the expression of overflowing power, pregnant with futurity (my _terminus_ for this is of course the word "Dionysian"); but it may also be the hatred of the ill-constituted, destitute and unfortunate, which destroys, and _must_ destroy, because the enduring, yea, all that endures, in fact all being, excites and provokes it. To understand this emotion we have but to look closely at our anarchists.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 147
Hitherto all that has given colour to existence has lacked a history: where would one find a history of love, of avarice, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even a comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto been completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast, and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the moral effects of the alimentary substances?
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 785
The moral earth also has its antipodes! The antipodes also have their right to exist! there is still another world to discover—and more than one! Aboard ship! ye philosophers!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 912
For a very long time conscious thinking was regarded as thinking proper: it is now only that the truth dawns upon us that the greater part of our intellectual activity goes on unconsciously and unfelt by us; I believe, however, that the impulses which are here in mutual conflict understand right well how to make themselves felt by _one another_, and how to cause pain:—the violent, sudden exhaustion which overtakes all thinkers, may have its origin here (it is the exhaustion of the battle-field).
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1002
If we wanted simply to call ourselves in older phraseology, atheists, unbelievers, or even immoralists, we should still be far from thinking ourselves designated thereby: we are all three in too late a phase for people generally to conceive, for _you_, my inquisitive friends, to be able to conceive, what is our state of mind under the circumstances. No!
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 186
The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants just as absolute power over her soul as over her body; he wants to be loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest and most to be desired.
The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza), passage 1191
This seems to me almost the normal condition with fruitful artists,—nobody knows a child worse than its parents—and the rule applies even (to take an immense example) to the entire Greek world of poetry and art, which was never "conscious" of what it had done....