QuoteProject
The existence of forgetting has never been proved: We only know that some things don't come to mind when we want them.
Friedrich Nietzsche
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Forgetting is a natural phenomenon, but its existence cannot be definitively proven; we only notice when thoughts elude us.

Nietzsche emphasizes the elusive nature of memory by stating that while we experience forgetfulness, we cannot actually prove that forgetting exists. Rather, he argues that it is more about our inability to access certain memories or thoughts at particular moments, highlighting the complexities of the mind and our understanding of memory.

Themes

ForgettingMemoryPhilosophyThoughtsExistence

In practice

Example use cases

In a discussion about the nature of memory at a philosophy seminar.

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

...and thus it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.
James M. BarrieRead
The people I really do dislike are the morally unimaginative kind of evolutionary reductionists who, in the name of science, think they can explain everything in terms of our early hominid ancestors or our genes, with their combination of high-handed tone and disregard for history. Such reductive speculation encourages a really empty scientism.
Bernard WilliamsRead
Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
Look at your life in contrast with the magnitude of creation, space and time. Your life becomes insignificant. Ego disappears.
Sri Sri Ravi ShankarRead
Ah! the clock is always slow; it is later than you think.
Robert W. ServiceRead
Hayek was making us think of the productive process as a process in time, inputs coming before outputs.
Friedrich August Von HayekRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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

Quote by Friedrich Nietzsche | QuoteProject