Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The beauty and ugliness in the world are defined by human perception and morality.
Friedrich Nietzsche asserts that beauty is not an inherent quality of objects or nature but is instead influenced by human perception and the moral state of humanity. In his view, aesthetics hinge on human values—what we find beautiful is a reflection of our own nature, while ugliness stems from the degeneration of humanity. This perspective challenges traditional notions of beauty and invites a deeper contemplation on the nature of aesthetic judgment.
Themes
BeautyUglinessAestheticsHuman PerceptionNietzsche
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about art, one might use this quote to emphasize the subjective nature of beauty.
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.
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
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The whole curse of the last century has been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is, the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other. It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of the whole dignity of the mankind. When Man is alive he stands still. It is only when he is dead that he swings.
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Sentimentality is unearned emotion.
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He had a better mind and a more rigorous temperament than me; he thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense.
Julian BarnesRead