QuoteProject
We are more pained when one of our friends is guilty of something shameful than when we do it ourselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

We feel deeper sorrow when a friend fails than when we ourselves do.

This quote from Friedrich Nietzsche suggests that our emotional connection to friends can create a heightened sense of pain when they act shamefully. It implies that our bond with others leads us to feel their failures more acutely, highlighting the importance of our relationships and the shared human experience of guilt and shame.

Themes

FriendshipGuiltShameEmotionRelationships

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion on the nature of guilt among friends, this quote could be used to illustrate the depth of emotional investment we have in our close relationships.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
That 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

Similar quotes

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
VoltaireRead
A rational man acting in the real world may be defined as one who decides where he will strike a balance between what he desires and what can be done.
Walter LippmannRead
Hope is called the anchor of the soul because it gives stability to the Christian life. But hope is not simply a 'wish' I wish that such-and-such would take place rather, it is that which latches on to the certainty of the promises of the future that God has made.
R. C. SproulRead
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
Wilfred OwenRead
Life has never been All or Nothing- it's All and Nothing. Forget the binaries.
Jeanette WintersonRead
Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier
Pierre BourdieuRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.