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Why does man not see things? He is himself standing in the way: he conceals things.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote addresses the idea that personal biases and self-deception prevent individuals from seeing the truth.

Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that humans often fail to perceive reality because their own prejudices and biases obstruct their view. Instead of seeing things as they are, people tend to filter their perceptions through a lens of personal beliefs, emotions, and fears, which ultimately conceals the truth from them. This idea highlights the importance of self-awareness and the need to confront one's own limitations to gain a clearer understanding of the world.

Themes

TruthPerceptionSelf-DeceptionAwarenessPhilosophy

In practice

Example use cases

This quote could be used in a discussion about personal biases in a psychology class.

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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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