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One loves ultimately one's desires, not the thing desired.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote suggests that what we truly care about are our own desires rather than the objects of those desires.

Friedrich Nietzsche emphasizes that the essence of love lies not in the objects we desire, but in the nature of our desires themselves. This perspective invites us to reflect on the deeper motivations behind our affections and pursuits, suggesting that our emotional attachments are primarily linked to our inner needs and aspirations rather than the external world.

Themes

DesireLovePhilosophyNietzscheEmotions

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be referenced in a discussion about the nature of love in a philosophy class.

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Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
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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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