Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
One unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of the one by the pain of the other.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the common misconception that the experiences of the doer and the sufferer are identical, leading to flawed judgments about guilt and pain.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote addresses the fallacy in assuming that those who cause harm (the doer) and those who suffer from it (the sufferer) have similar emotional experiences. This misunderstanding can result in unfair assessments of moral responsibility, as it overlooks the subjective nature of pain and guilt. Nietzsche encourages a deeper analysis of how we evaluate the actions and feelings of others, advocating for an awareness of the intrinsic differences in personal experiences.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the ethics of actions and consequences.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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 — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — 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.
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.
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
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I am quite ready to acknowledge . . . that I ought to be grieved at death, if I were not persuaded that I am going to other gods who are wise and good (of this I am as certain as I can be of any such matters), and to men departed who are better than those whom I leave behind. And therefore I do not grieve as I might have done, for I have good hope that there is yet something remaining for the dead.
Things are no longer what they seem to be. My telephones are haunted, and animals whisper at me from unseen places.
Charity never humiliated him who profited from it, nor ever bound him by the chains of gratitude, since it was not to him but to God that the gift was made.
Man is above all else mind, consciousness -- that is, he is a product of history, not of nature.