Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
In almost all sciences the fundamental knowledge is either found in earliest times or is still being sought.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the idea that foundational knowledge in sciences is either ancient or still being explored.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote suggests that the core principles of scientific understanding have often been established in the distant past, yet there remain myriad questions and areas of inquiry that humanity continues to pursue. In this light, the quote emphasizes the dual nature of knowledge acquisition: we inherit wisdom from earlier civilizations while perpetually seeking answers to the unknown, illustrating the ongoing journey of discovery intrinsic to human existence.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture about the evolution of scientific thought, one might use this quote to highlight the historical foundation of knowledge.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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.
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.
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Similar quotes
Meaning doesn't lie in things. Meaning lies in us. When we attach value to things that aren't love - the money, the car, the house, the prestige - we are loving things that can't love us back. We are searching for meaning in the meaningless. Money, of itself, means nothing. Material things, of themselves, mean nothing. It's not that they're bad. It's that they're nothing. ("A Return to Love")
I am much inclined to live from my rucksack, and let my trousers fray as they like.
In such a performance you may lay the foundation of national happiness only in religion, not by leaving it doubtful "whether morals can exist without it," but by asserting that without religion morals are the effects of causes as purely physical as pleasant breezes and fruitful seasons.
If the enemy could only know that Marcus Garvey is but a John the Baptist in the wilderness, that a greater and more dangerous Marcus Garvey is yet to appear, the Garvey with whom you will have to reckon for the injustice of the present generation.
Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair.
Evil exists to glorify the good. Evil is negative good. It is a relative term. Evil can be transmuted into good. What is evil to one at one time, becomes good at another time to somebody else.