Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills. 'Behold , just now the world ... entire love. And woman must obey and find a depth for her surface. Surface is the disposition of woman: a mobile, stormy film over shallow water. Man's disposition, however, is deep; his river roars in subterranean caves: woman feels his strength but does not comprehend it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the different ways men and women experience happiness and love, highlighting a contrast between their dispositions and emotional depths.
In this quote, Nietzsche reflects on the nature of happiness in men and women, suggesting a dichotomy where men find fulfillment in their willpower while women find theirs in their partner's desires. He describes women's emotional experiences as surface-level, often turbulent, while portraying men as having a deeper, more powerful emotional core that women can sense but may not fully understand. This distinction comments on broader themes of gender dynamics and the complexities of love and relationships.
Themes
HappinessGenderRelationshipsLoveEmotionsDepth
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a discussion about gender roles in modern relationships.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
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Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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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 — as if happiness sat on the throne. Often, mud sits on the throne — 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.
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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.
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The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
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