Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Everyone wants to be foremost in this future-and yet death and the stillness of death are the only things certain and common to all in this future! How strange that this sole thing that is certain and common to all, exercises almost no influence on men, and that they are the furthest from regarding themselves as the brotherhood of death! It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the idea of death!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the irony of human desire for prominence while neglecting the inevitability of death.
In this quote, Friedrich Nietzsche observes the paradox of human nature where everyone aspires to achieve greatness and recognition in life, yet death, which is the only certainty that unites all people, is largely ignored in our thoughts and actions. He finds it intriguing—and somewhat comforting—how individuals shy away from contemplating death, indicating a collective denial about a fundamental aspect of existence that should remind us of our shared humanity and the transient nature of life.
Themes
DeathHuman NatureMortalityExistencePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about mortality during a philosophy class.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →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 — 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.
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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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