Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Excess arises from a lack of true joy, indicating that true satisfaction comes from contentment rather than overindulgence.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote suggests that indulgence and excess are often a response to a deeper feeling of joylessness. When individuals lack genuine happiness or fulfillment, they may seek to compensate through excessive behaviors, yet such attempts ultimately do not lead to true joy. Instead, it is the absence of joy that breeds a cycle of excess, highlighting the importance of finding true contentment rather than seeking it through excess.
Themes
ExcessJoyJoylessnessHappinessNietzsche
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about finding balance in oneβs life, one could use this quote to emphasize the dangers of excess.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat 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 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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