Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Iron necessity is a thing which in the course of history men come to see as neither iron nor necessary.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that what may seem essential or rigid at one point in history can later be viewed as arbitrary or not necessary.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote reflects on the fluid nature of necessity in human history. He implies that over time, the things we believe are essential can shift, revealing that what once felt like an 'iron necessity' may actually be perceived as non-essential. It challenges us to question our assumptions about what is truly necessary for life and progress.
Themes
NecessityHistoryPerspectiveChangePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate on historical determinism, one might use this quote to highlight how perceptions of necessity change over time.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat 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 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.
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
I'm hoping what all sentient beings hope ... that somehow I'm part of something larger than myself, in which I play a role, an actual role that is somehow intended and meaningful.
Anne RiceRead
Time is water, and the Venetians conquered both by building a city on water, and framed time with their canals. Or tamed time. Or fenced it in. Or caged it.
Joseph BrodskyRead
The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery. If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you'll always be seeking. I've never seen anybody really find the answer, but they think they have. So they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
Ken KeseyRead
The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.
Mary Mcleod BethuneRead
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyRead
Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true and assured I have gotten either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once.
Rene DescartesRead