Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Mountain climbing equalizes people, revealing their true nature regardless of societal labels.
In this quote, Nietzsche suggests that the challenges faced in mountain climbing can strip away social pretenses and reveal the fundamental similarities between individuals, whether deemed 'good' or 'bad'. The struggle against nature in such a demanding environment brings out the raw essence of human character, highlighting that beneath the labels of saint and blackguard, we share a common humanity forged through experience and adversity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, one might say, 'As Nietzsche pointed out, a few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.'
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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.
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.
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Similar quotes
He sees with amazement that our defeats are but the stepping stones to victory and that all his victories are stepping stones to ruin. It was apparent to me that this bad man saw quite clearly the shadow of slowly and remorselessly approaching doom, and he railed at fortune for mocking him with the glitter of fleeting success.
The most powerful prayer, one wellnigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is.
No. You can't work your way into heaven. Anytime you try and justify yourself with works, you disqualify yourself with works. What I do here, every day, for the rest of my life, is only my way of saying, 'Lord, regardless of what eternity holds for me, let me give something back to you. I know it doesn't even no scorecard. But let me make something of my life before I go.. and then, Lord, I'm at your mercy.
I am an atheist, thanks be to God.
I always say that my favorite people to interview are the people who are at the beginning and the ends of their lives because they have two alternate perspectives of the world, and neither of them are less profound.
I've become convinced that nostalgia is a fundamentally unhealthy modality. When you see it, it's usually attached to something else that's really, seriously bad. I don't traffic in nostalgia. We're becoming a global culture.