Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
How much disgruntled heaviness, lameness, dampness, how much beer is there in the German intelligence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nietzsche critiques the state of German intellectualism, suggesting it suffers from negativity and mediocrity.
In this quote, Friedrich Nietzsche expresses his disdain for the German intellectual tradition, implying that it is weighed down by negativity and a lack of vitality, akin to the effects of excessive beer consumption. He uses vivid imagery to suggest that the German intelligence lacks the creativity and dynamism necessary for true philosophical thought, instead being burdened by a sense of heaviness and gloom that stifles originality and progress.
Themes
GermanIntelligenceNegativityPhilosophyCreativity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a seminar discussing the evolution of philosophical thought in Germany.
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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