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A few hours of mountain climbing make a blackguard and a saint two rather similar creatures.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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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

Mountain ClimbingHuman NatureAdversitySelf-Discovery

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.'

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Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
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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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