Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nietzsche critiques the unrealistic expectations of human nature in the context of conflict and war.
In this quote, Nietzsche highlights the naive belief that humanity can embody beauty and idealism while ignoring the brutal realities of life, particularly the darker aspects of human nature such as conflict and war. He suggests that expecting a higher moral standard from people who have become disconnected from the harsh truths of existence is an act of fanaticism, indicating that an understanding of our primal instincts is essential for genuine progress.
Themes
FanaticismHumanityWarTruthMorality
In practice
Example use cases
A speaker at a human rights conference might use this quote to emphasize the need for realism in expectations of human behavior.
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
Similar quotes
We live by revelations, as Christians, as artists, which means we must be careful never to get set into rigid molds. The minute we begin to think we know all the answers, we forget all the questions and we become like the pharisee who listed all his considerable virtues, and thanked God that he was not like other men.
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Prayer is like lying awake at night, afraid, with your head under the cover, hearing only the beating of your own heart. It is like a bird that has blundered down the flue and is caught indoors and flutters at the windowpanes. It is like standing a long time on a cold day, knocking at a shut door.
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We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, Tβlan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.
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It is the pull of opposite poles that stretches souls. And only stretched souls make music.
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You can neither lie to a neighbourhood park, nor reason with it. 'Artist's conceptions' and persuasive renderings can put pictures of life into proposed neighbourhood parks or park malls, and verbal rationalizations can conjure up users who ought to appreciate them, but in real life only diverse surroundings have the practical power of inducing a natural, continuing flow of life and use.
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The fact is, that what de Sade was trying to bring to the surface of the conscious mind was precisely the thing that revolted that mind . . . From the very first he set before the consciousness things which it could not tolerate.
Georges BatailleRead