Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that when writing, a person desires both understanding and the ambiguity that can lead to multiple interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote reflects the dual nature of communication in writing; while the writer seeks clarity and comprehension from the reader, there is also an inherent desire for complexity and misunderstanding. This interplay allows for deeper engagement, where readers can draw their own meanings and insights, thereby enriching the experience of the text. It acknowledges the subjective nature of language and the varied interpretations that can arise from it.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a writing workshop, when discussing the complexity of creative expression.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat 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 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.
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.
Similar quotes
To shift the structure of a sentence alters the meaning of that sentence, as definitely and inflexibly as the position of a camera alters the meaning of the object photographed.
But if something did happen, it happened. Whether it's right or wrong. I accept everything that happens, and that's how I became the person I am now.
How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what's already yours?
The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Philosophy is speculation, Zen is participation. Participate in the night leaving, participate in the evening coming, participate in the stars and participate in the clouds; make participation your lifestyle and the whole existence becomes such a joy, such an ecstasy. You could not have dreamed of a better universe.
I think that when in doubt about the truth of an issue, it's safer and in better taste to select the least numerous of the adversaries.