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He who lives as children live - who does not struggle for his bread and does not believe that his actions possess any ultimate significance - remains childlike.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that maintaining a childlike perspective can free us from the burdens of adult concerns and meanings.

Friedrich Nietzsche observes that those who live with the simplicity and innocence of children, free from the struggles of survival and the weight of existential significance, retain a childlike essence. This perspective highlights the value of embracing a pure, uncomplicated view of life, unencumbered by adult worries and the search for meaning.

Themes

ChildlikeInnocenceExistenceLifeSimplicity

In practice

Example use cases

In a talk about maintaining joy in life, you could quote Nietzsche to emphasize the value of childlike wonder.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
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That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
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Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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Watch them clamber, these swift monkeys! They clamber over one another and thus drag one another into the mud and the depth. They all want to get to the throne: that is their madness β€” as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne β€” and often the throne also on mud. Mad they all appear to me, clambering monkeys and overardent. Foul smells their idol, the cold monster: foul, they smell to me altogether, these idolators.
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Reason is the cause of our falsification of the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show becoming, passing away, change, they do not lie.
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The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
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