Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
To be moral, correct, and virtuous is to be obedient to an old established law and custom.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Moral behavior is defined by adherence to long-standing laws and customs.
Friedrich Nietzsche argues that morality is not an inherent trait but rather a construct defined by societal norms and traditions. He suggests that to act in a moral, correct, and virtuous manner means to comply with the established laws and customs that have been passed down through generations, challenging the notion of individual morality disconnected from societal influences.
Themes
MoralityCustomsLawVirtuePhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a debate about ethical behavior, this quote can highlight the importance of societal norms.
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.
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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.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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Even the laws of justice themselves cannot subsist without mixture of injustice.
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We know all their gods; they ignore ours. What they call our sins are our gods, and what they call their gods, we name otherwise.
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The resistance to praying is like the resistance of tightly clenched fists. This image shows a tension, a desire to cling tightly to yourself, a greediness which betrays fear.
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Human life must always be defended from its beginning in the womb and must be recognised as a gift of God that guarantees the future of humanity.
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To pray is to pay attention to something or someone other than oneself. Whenever a man so concentrates his attention - on a landscape, a poem, a geometrical problem, an idol, or the True God - that he completely forgets his own ego and desires, he is praying. The primary task of the schoolteacher is to teach children, in a secular context, the technique of prayer.
W. H. AudenRead