Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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
UnderstandingWritingCommunicationInterpretationAmbiguity
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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. . . by natural selection our mind has adapted itself to the conditions of the external world. It has adopted the geometry most advantageous to the species or, in other words, the most convenient. Geometry is not true, it is advantageous.
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For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.
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Right now you can allow yourself to experience a very simple sense of not knowing - not knowing what or who you are, not knowing what this moment is, not knowing anything. If you give yourself this gift of not knowing and you follow it, a vast spaciousness and mysterious openness dawns within you. Relaxing into not knowing is almost like surrendering into a big, comfortable chair; you just fall into a field of possibility.
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In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
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