QuoteProject
Those who are bent on revolutionizing society may be divided into those who seek something for themselves thereby and those who seek something for their children and grandchildren.
Friedrich Nietzsche
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Nietzsche distinguishes between self-serving revolutionaries and those motivated by the well-being of future generations.

In this quote, Friedrich Nietzsche reflects on the motives behind social revolution. He asserts that revolutionaries can be categorized into two types: those who pursue change primarily for their own benefits and those who are driven by a vision of improving society for the sake of future generations. This distinction highlights the varying intentions behind efforts to alter the social order, emphasizing a self-centered approach versus an altruistic one.

Themes

RevolutionSocietySelflessnessFutureLegacy

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about social change, this quote may highlight the differences in motivations.

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

All change is a miracle to contemplate, but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant.
Henry David ThoreauRead
If you're not adapting to the very rapidly changing environment, if you can't think creatively, you lose big in this society because there are very few jobs for you left.
Robert SternbergRead
If everyone has to think outside the box, maybe it is the box that needs fixing.
Malcolm GladwellRead
We shall strike. We shall organize boycotts. We shall demonstrate and have political campaigns. We shall pursue the revolution we have proposed. We are sons and daughters of the farm workers' revolution, a revolution of the poor seeking bread and justice.
Cesar ChavezRead
In the 1970s, girls didn't do anything. It wasn't their fault. For me and the other working-class girls I hung around with, our route was plotted - you were a secretary and a wife. I wanted to hitchhike around the world, go on motorbikes, be in bands.
Viv AlbertineRead
Historical fact: People stopped being people in 1913. That was the year Henry Ford put his cars on rollers and made his workers adopt the speed of the assembly line. At first, workers rebelled. They quit in droves, unable to accustom their bodies to the new pace of the age. Since then, however, the adaptation has been passed down: we've all inherited it to some degree, so that we plug right into joy-sticks and remotes, to repetitive motions of a hundred kinds.
Jeffrey EugenidesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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