Twilight of the Idols Quotes

“Today we no longer have any pity for the concept of "free will": we know only too well what it really is — the foulest of all theologians' artifices, aimed at making mankind "responsible" in their sense, that is, dependent upon them. Here I simply supply the psychology of all "making responsible".”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“G. Eliot. -- They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more firmly that they must cling to Christian morality. That is an English consistency; we do not wish to hold it against little moralistic females à la Eliot. In England one must rehabilitate oneself after every little emancipation from theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiring manner what a moral fanatic one is. That is the penance they pay there.

We others hold otherwise. When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet. This morality is by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despite the English flatheads. Christianity is a system, a whole view of things thought out together. By breaking one main concept out of it, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands. Christianity presupposes that man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God is the truth--it stands and falls with faith in God.

When the English actually believe that they know "intuitively" what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of morality, we merely witness the effects of the dominion of the Christian value judgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existence is no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“All the means by which one has so far attempted to make mankind moral were through and through immoral.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Judgements, judgements of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms; in themselves such judgements are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one’s fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“You have heard me call for philosophers to place themselves beyond good and evil, - to rise above the illusion of moral judgment.
This call is the result of an insight that I was the first to formulate: there are absolutely no moral facts.
What moral and religious judgments have in common is the belief in things that are not real.
Morality is just an interpretation of certain phenomena or (more accurately) a mis-interpretation.
Moral judgments, like religious ones, presuppose a level of ignorance in which even the concept of reality is missing and there is no distinction between the real and the imaginary; a level where 'truth' is the name for the very things that we now call 'illusions'.
That is why moral judgments should never be taken literally: on their own, they are just absurdities.
But semiotically, they are invaluable: if you know what to look for, moral judgments reveal the most valuable realities of the cultures and interiorities that did not know enough to 'understand' themselves.
Morality is just a sign language, just a symptomatology: you have to know what it means in order to take advantage of it.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Beauty no accident. ―The beauty of a race or a family, their grace and graciousness in all gestures, is won by work: like genius, it is the end result of the accumulated work of generations. One must have made great sacrifices to good taste, one must have done much and omitted much, for its sake―seventeenth-century France is admirable in both respects―and good taste must have furnished a principle for selecting company, place, dress, sexual satisfaction; one must have preferred beauty to advantage, habit, opinion, and inertia. Supreme rule of conduct: before oneself too, one must not "let oneself go." The good things are immeasurably costly; and the law always holds that those who have them are different from those who acquire them. All that is good is inherited: whatever is not inherited is imperfect, is a mere beginning.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Today we possess science precisely to the extent to which we have decided to accept the testimony of the senses—to the extent to which we sharpen them further, arm them, and have learned to think them through. The rest is miscarriage and not-yet-science—in other words, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology—or formal science, a doctrine of signs, such as logic and that applied logic which is called mathematics. In them reality is not encountered at all, not even as a problem—no more than the question of the value of such a sign convention as logic.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“untuk hidup sendirian, orang harus menjadi binatang atau dewa--kata Aristoteles. ada yang ketiga: orang harus menjadi keduanya, yaitu seorang filsuf”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“apa gunanya bahwa saya terbukti benar? saya berada di sisi kebenaran?--dan dia yang tertawa pertamakali hari ini, juga akan tertawa yang terakhir”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“En admettant que l’on ait compris ce qu’il y a de sacrilège dans un pareil soulèvement contre la vie, tel qu’il est devenu presque sacro-saint dans la morale chrétienne, on aura, par cela même et heureusement, compris autre chose encore : ce qu’il y a d’inutile, de factice, d’absurde, de mensonger dans un pareil soulèvement. Une condamnation de la vie de la part du vivant n’est finalement que le symptôme d’une espèce de vie déterminée : sans qu’on se demande en aucune façon si c’est à tort ou à raison. Il faudrait prendre position en dehors de la vie et la connaître d’autre part tout aussi bien que quelqu’un qui l’a traversée, que plusieurs et même tous ceux qui y ont passé, pour ne pouvoir que toucher au problème de la valeur de la vie : ce sont là des raisons suffisantes pour comprendre que ce problème est en dehors de notre portée. Si nous parlons de la valeur, nous parlons sous l’inspiration, sous l’optique de la vie : la vie elle-même nous force à déterminer des valeurs, la vie elle-même évolue par notre entremise lorsque nous déterminons des valeurs… Il s’ensuit que toute morale contre nature qui considère Dieu comme l’idée contraire, comme la condamnation de la vie, n’est en réalité qu’une évaluation de vie, — de quelle vie ? de quelle espèce de vie ? Mais j’ai déjà donné ma réponse : de la vie descendante, affaiblie, fatiguée, condamnée. La morale, telle qu’on l’a entendue jusqu’à maintenant — telle qu’elle a été formulée en dernier lieu par Schopenhauer, comme « négation de la volonté de vivre » — cette morale est l’instinct de décadence même, qui se transforme en impératif : elle dit : « va à ta perte ! » — elle est le jugement de ceux qui sont déjà jugés…”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Une condamnation de la vie de la part du vivant n’est finalement que le symptôme d’une espèce de vie déterminée : sans qu’on se demande en aucune façon si c’est à tort ou à raison. Il faudrait prendre position en dehors de la vie et la connaître d’autre part tout aussi bien que quelqu’un qui l’a traversée, que plusieurs et même tous ceux qui y ont passé, pour ne pouvoir que toucher au problème de la valeur de la vie : ce sont là des raisons suffisantes pour comprendre que ce problème est en dehors de notre portée. Si nous parlons de la valeur, nous parlons sous l’inspiration, sous l’optique de la vie : la vie elle-même nous force à déterminer des valeurs, la vie elle-même évolue par notre entremise lorsque nous déterminons des valeurs…”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Những chủng loại không tiến hoá. Trái lại, những mẫu suy đồi, bệnh hoạn chế ngự dần những mẫu chọn lọc lành mạnh: những kẻ yếu càng ngày càng thắng lướt những kẻ mạnh - bởi chúng đông hơn, khôn khéo hơn, thận trọng hơn, yếm trá hơn, tự chủ mạnh mẽ hơn, bắt chước tài tình hơn, đức độ hơn - tóm lại bởi chúng tinh thần hơn.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Hasta el más valiente de nosotros pocas veces tiene valor para enfrentarse con lo que realmente sabe...”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, El ocaso de los ídolos o cómo se filosofa a martillazos

“L’homme cherche un principe au nom duquel il puisse mépriser l’homme ; il invente un autre monde pour pouvoir calomnier et salir ce monde-ci ; en fait, il ne saisit jamais que le néant et fait de ce néant un « Dieu », une « vérité » appelés à juger et à condamner cette existence-ci.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Le Crépuscule des idoles Ou Comment on philosophe avec un marteau

“Rousseau, esse primeiro homem moderno, idealista e 'canaille' numa só pessoa; que necessitava da 'dignidade' moral para aguentar seu próprio aspecto; doente de vaidade e de autodesprezo desenfreados. Esse aborto que se recostou no umbral da nova época também queria 'retorno à natureza' -- para onde, repito a pergunta, queria retornar Rousseau? -- Eu odeio Rousseau inclusive na Revolução: ela é a expressão histórico-universal dessa duplicidade de idealista e 'canaille'. A 'farce' sangrenta com que transcorreu essa Revolução, a sua 'imoralidade', pouco me importa: o que odeio é a sua moralidade rousseauniana -- as chamadas 'verdades' da Revolução, com as quais ela ainda faz efeito e convence para o seu lado tudo o que é raso e medíocre. A doutrina da igualdade!... Mas não há veneno mais venenoso: pois ela parece pregada pela própria justiça, enquanto é o fim da justiça... 'Aos iguais o que é igual, aos desiguais o que é desigual' -- esse seria o verdadeiro discurso da justiça: e, consequência disso, 'jamais igualar o que é desigual.' O fato de as coisas terem transcorrido de maneira tão medonha e sangrenta em torno dessa doutrina da igualdade conferiu a essa 'ideia moderna' par excellence uma espécie de glória e resplendor, de modo que a Revolução como espetáculo também seduziu os espíritos mais nobres. Isso não é, no fim das contas, razão para estimá-la mais. -- Vejo apenas um homem que a considerou da maneira que ela deve ser considerada, com nojo -- Goethe”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Crepúsculo dos ídolos: (Ou como filosofar com o martelo) (Conexões)

“Chrześcijaństwo jest metafizyką kata.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Mam cię, nihilisto! Siedzenie jest właśnie grzechem przeciw duchowi świętemu. Jeno wychodzone myśli są coś warte.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Ao falar de valores, falamos sob a inspiração, sob a ótica da vida: a vida mesma nos força a estabelecer valores, ela mesma valora através de nós, ao estabelecermos valores... Disto se segue que também essa antinatureza de moral, que concebe Deus como antítese e condenação da vida, é apenas um juízo de valor da vida :---: de qual vida? de qual espécie de vida? :---: Já dei a resposta: da vida declinante, enfraquecida, cansada, condenada.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Crepúsculo dos ídolos: ou Como se filosofa com o martelo

“The will to a system: expressed morally, a more refined corruption with philosophers, an illness of character; expressed unmorally, his will to appear stupider than he is. Stupider, that means stronger, simpler, more dominating, less cultured, more commanding, more tyrannical.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight Of The Idols: Or, How To Philosophise With The Hammer By Friedrich Nietzsche - The Antichrist Notes To Zarathustra, And Eternal ... Anthony M. Ludovici And Edited By Oscar Levy

“The aphorism, the sentence, in both of which I, as the first among Germans, am a master, are the forms of "eternity"; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a whole book,—what everyone else does not say in a whole book.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“..."Equality to the equal, inequality to the unequal" — that would be the true slogan of justice; and its corollary: "Never make equal what is unequal!"...”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“What is called idol on the title page is simply what has been called truth so far. Twilight of the Idols – that is: the old truth is approaching its end.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Socrates was a misunderstanding; the whole improvement-morality, including the Christian, was a misunderstanding.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Atribuir sua situação ruim a outros ou a si mesmo - a primeira atitude é própria do socialista, a última, do cristão, por exemplo - não faz qualquer verdadeira diferença.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Pahalıdır bedeli, iktidara
gelmenin: iktidar aptallaştırır...”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Putların Alacakaranlığında

“In art, man takes delight in himself as perfection.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Anyone who cannot manage to invest his will in things at least invests them with a meaning: i.e. he believes there is already a will in them (principle of ‘belief).”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols

“Quiero, de una vez por todas, no saber muchas cosas. La sabiduría traza límites también al conocimiento.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“¡No cometer cobardía alguna contra las propias acciones! ¡No dejarlas en la estacada una vez realizadas! Los remordimientos de conciencia son una indecencia.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“Are we immoralists harming virtue? No more than anarchists harm princes. Only because the latter are shot at do they once more sit securely on their thrones. Moral: morality must be shot at.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols