Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
All in all, punishment hardens and renders people more insensible; it concentrates; it increases the feeling of estrangement; it strengthens the power of resistance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Punishment often has the opposite effect of its intention, leading to greater resistance and estrangement in individuals.
Friedrich Nietzsche critiques the efficacy of punishment, arguing that rather than reforming individuals, it tends to harden them, reducing empathy and increasing feelings of separation from society. This perspective suggests that punitive measures intensify resistance to authority and diminish the potential for personal growth and connection.
Themes
PunishmentResistanceEstrangementNietzscheConsequence
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about criminal justice reform.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat which does not kill us makes us stronger.
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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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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