Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Every tradition grows continually more venerable, and the more remote its origins, the more this is lost sight of. The veneration paid the tradition accumulates from generation to generation, until it at last becomes holy and excites awe.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Traditions gain respect over time, often losing sight of their original context and meaning.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote speaks to the way traditions evolve and acquire a sense of reverence over time. As they are passed down through generations, the original meanings and contexts may become obscured, leading to a blind veneration that can elevate them to a status of holiness and awe, detached from their origins.
Themes
TraditionVenerationHistoryMeaningEvolution
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech discussing cultural heritage that emphasizes the value of respecting traditions.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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 — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — 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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Similar quotes
We must admit with humility that, while number is purely a product of our minds, space has a reality outside our minds, so that we cannot completely prescribe its properties a priori.
Carl Friedrich GaussRead
I am frankly sick and tired of the political preachers telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C, and D. Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
Barry GoldwaterRead
He who seeks to regulate everything by law is more likely to arouse vices than to reform them. It is best to grant what cannot be abolished, even though it be in itself harmful. How many evils spring from luxury, envy, avarice, drunkenness and the like, yet these are tolerated because they cannot be prevented by legal enactments.
Baruch SpinozaRead
It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth.
Niels BohrRead
And each day brings it's pretty dust, Our soon-choked souls to fll And we forget because we must, And not because we will.
Matthew ArnoldRead
If I ask you to plunge into the Ganga or to jump from the roof of a house, meaning it all for your good, could you do even that without any hesitations Just think of it even now; otherwise don't rush forward on the spur of the moment to accept me as your Guru.
Swami VivekanandaRead