Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The life of the enemy . Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy's staying alive.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Engaging with a rival or adversary can create a paradox where their existence becomes essential to your own purpose.
This quote by Friedrich Nietzsche highlights the complex relationship one can have with an adversary. It suggests that individuals who are fixated on an enemy or rival often find that their own existence and purpose are intertwined with that enemy's life. This dependency creates an interesting dynamic where the adversary is not merely an opponent but also a crucial element of one's own identity and drive, ultimately reflecting a deeper philosophical perspective on conflict and motivation.
Themes
EnemyPurposeConflictIdentityMotivation
In practice
Example use cases
During a debate on ethics, one might use this quote to illustrate how adversarial positions can reflect personal motivations.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat 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
When the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among the white men shall have become a myth, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless.
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The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.
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We trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot if we think we are forgiven because we are sorry for our sins.
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What we see in the outer is but a reflection of the inner, because we surround ourselves with a picture of our own beliefs. In other words, we manifest in general what we seriously think and believe. So if we want to find out what our habitual thinking is like, we have but to look around us and ask ourselves what we really see.
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He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil.
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Many heroes lived before Agamemnon; but all are unknown and unwept, extinguished in everlasting night, because they have no spirited chronicler.
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