Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
'He who seeks may easily get lost himself. It is a crime to go apart and be alone.' Thus speaks the herd.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that the pursuit of individual desires can lead to confusion and isolation, as society often discourages solitude.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote touches on the struggle between individualism and societal expectations. It implies that the quest for meaning or personal truth can lead one astray, leading to feelings of disconnection and loneliness, as dictated by societal norms that view solitude as a negative state. Nietzsche critiques the herd mentality that shames those who venture apart, emphasizing the importance of understanding oneself amid societal pressures.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of self-reflection and staying true to oneself.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That 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 — 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.
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.
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Anyone who has spent a few nights in a tent during a storm can tell you: The world doesn't care all that much if you live or die.
No one knows what capacities for doing and suffering he has in himself, until something comes to rouse them to activity: just as in a pond of still water, lying there like a mirror, there is no sign of the roar and thunder with which it can leap from the precipice, and yet remain what it is; or again, rise high in the air as a fountain. When water is as cold as ice, you can have no idea of the latent warmth contained in it.
No one who errs unwillingly is evil.
Everything that is,casts a shadow
Thin ribbons of fear snake bluely through you like a system of rivers. We need a cloudburst or soothing landscape fast, to still this panic. Maybe a field of dracaena, or a vast stand of sugar pines—generous, gum-yielding trees—to fill our minds with vegetable wonder and keep dread at bay.
Each side tries to legitimize their aims by appealing to history, sometimes selectively choosing episodes and other times just by inventing history.