Nietzschean affirmation.

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If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings - always darker, emptier and simpler.

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.

The word 'Christianity' is already a misunderstanding - in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.

The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.

The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you.

It is impossible to suffer without making someone pay for it; every complaint already contains revenge.

Anyone who has declared someone else to be an idiot, a bad apple, is annoyed when it turns out in the end that he isn't.

Success has always been a great liar.

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.

What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

There are no facts, only interpretations.
It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.



Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.

In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

There are people who want to make men's lives more difficult for no other reason than the chance it provides them afterwards to offer their prescription for alleviating life; their Christianity, for instance.

Those who cannot understand how to put their thoughts on ice should not enter into the heat of debate.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book.

Is man one of God's blunders? Or is God one of man's blunders?

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Love is not consolation. It is light.

In music the passions enjoy themselves.

We hear only those questions for which we are in a position to find answers.

There is not enough religion in the world even to destroy religion.

The greatest weight.-- What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!"
Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus?... Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?

Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker.

—Nietzsche, Friedrich,


Anyone have any favorites to share?

Tl;dr

I wonder if Nietzche actually believed any of this.

Some of what he wrote I like to think of as the Nietzschean Pep Talk but my favorite Nietzschean moments are when he believes he is Polish and not German.

I did my thesis on Richard Wagner's politics and Nietzsche was a recurring theme in his diary. Nietzsche spent about two years living with Wagner and Wagner's conclusion was that, "He suffers no real malady, lest we consider excessive masturbation."

edit: that's only semi related, but I hadn't thought about it in almost a decade so I had to share.

And right back at him, Nietzsche came to despise Wagner for his Antisemitism.

That wasn't the only thing to despise Richard Wagner for, lol. My thesis was basically on the politics of his music and how you can't really separate the politics from the art. He created some absolutely beautiful and groundbreaking operas, but almost all of them had a truly bigoted message attached. As good as his work was I refuse to listen to it anymore because at the end of the day it's merely auditory fluff to make a disgusting message more appealing. KK, enough hijacking of the thread back to "Daily affirmations with Friedrich Nietzsche"...

Wagner was the father Nietzsche never had. He was disappointed in Wagner's excessive nationalism and reliance on Christian themes in his operas, Parsifal in particular. He was too interested in pleasing the senses of Mad King Ludwig.

Well, crazy ol' Ludwig did buy him his own personal opera house out in the boondocks, he knew who his master was. That being said it's not that simple, Wagner himself was most likely half-Jewish, his paternity was questioned in his own time and he even mentioned his doubts a few times in his own diary. Beethoven was also antisemitic but people don't mention that much, and it wasn't a major part of his message, but he did hold those beliefs. I think Wagner rightfully gets hammered because he actively promoted brutality.

Yes, of course Bayreuth! Wasn't it a thorn in Nietzsche's writhing side?

Back then and prior to that, Europe was indeed anti semetic. They didn't address it and let it flourish so it was a part of European culture. Name me someone who wasn't antisemitic unless he was a practicing Jew. They were the ones who complained about it.

Lol, no idea. I'm not really educated on Nietzsche's philosophies, only that he like killed god and all. I've been told that quote is inaccurate by way of redaction, what he actually said was "God is dead. Humans killed him." or something to that effect. That could be inaccurate, I heard it from someone else and didn't research it myself, so if it's not and I'm an idiot let me know so I don't repeat it again, lol.

My main experience with Nietzsche is Wagner running him down in said diary. That being said, if Wagner was annoyed by him he sounds like my kind of philosopher. He is on my list of studies I'd like to complete before I'm dead though, but that list is super long, well over 200 entries.

Now here's a moral dilemma for you: You're on a sinking boat and there's one spot on the life raft, being a moral and decent person you will fill that spot out. Your options are between Richard Wagner and Josh Duggar. I myself would actually go with Richard Wagner, yes he was antisemitic, bad for history, and just kind of a pompous a-hole, but as you mentioned yesterday: Josh Duggar robocalls people-- nothing more despicable than a robocaller.

Hahaha. Poor Josh. I know he did horrible things but I can't help but feel sorry for him only because I know he must have been through a lot with his dad's bad temper, bibleholics, and always having to do without because he had so many brothers and sisters that's not mentioning eating potted meat/generic Miracle Whip sandwiches for lunch and dinner everyday for the first decade of his life, if not longer, before select restaurants let children eat for free on Tuesday evenings if the parents ordered dinner.
Richard Wagner was a product of his time. Brilliant composer. I do love his operas! What would Star Wars be if he had drowned before writing them?

Nietzsche's thought was man killed God through science and he got that idea from the most German of writers, Goethe who first said God was dead in Faust.

It's really also too bad that the likes of Wagner and his latter day disciple, Adolf Hitler, had chosen to politicize Germanic myth and early history. They soured those things to many people, when there was absolutely nothing antisemitic or fascist about Germanic antiquities.

Anti Semitism flourished throughout Europe, Germany was no exception, since before the time of Wagner. Nazism was merely the culmination of a continent which did nothing to address discord between ethnicities. We saw it explode during World War ii:


http://web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm