Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Remain faithful to the earth, my brothers, with the power of your virtue. Let your gift-giving love and your knowledge serve the meaning of the earth. Thus I beg and beseech you. Do not let them fly away from earthly things and beat with their wings against eternal walls. Alas, there has always been so much virtue that has flown away. Lead back to the earth the virtue that flew away, as I do—back to the body, back to life, that it may give the earth a meaning, a human meaning.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of valuing earthly existence and using our virtues to enrich life on earth.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote reminds us to stay grounded and loyal to the physical world around us. He argues that our virtues, love, and knowledge should be applied to give meaning to our earthly experience rather than becoming distracted by abstract or eternal concepts. Nietzsche expresses a heartfelt plea to redirect our focus back to life, encouraging us to breathe vitality into our existence and to appreciate the intrinsic meaning that being human provides.
Themes
EarthVirtueMeaningLifeHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote this to emphasize the connection between virtue and our duty to the earth.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →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 — 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.
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
Treating an identity as an illness invites real illness to make a braver stand.
Andrew SolomonRead
Mary's life was a perfect imitation of Jesus. She was humble, hidden, sorrowful and afflicted, but she also knew joys that never entered the heart of man. She is all things to all men that she might understand their failings, though she failed not.
Mother AngelicaRead
The issue isn't the accuracy of the bombs you have, it's how you use the bombs you have - and more importantly, whether you ought to use bombs at all.
Malcolm GladwellRead
Where charity stands watching and faith holds wide the door the dark night wakes - the glory breaks, Christmas comes once more.
Phillips BrooksRead
True freedom means freeing oneself from the dictates of the ego and its accompanying emotions.
Matthieu RicardRead
The Church is designed to nourish the imperfect, the struggling, and the exhausted.
Dieter F. UchtdorfRead