Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People's actions can often be attributed to vanity, habit, or fear.
In this quote, Nietzsche suggests that human behavior can generally be understood through the lenses of vanity, habit, and fear. Extreme actions are often motivated by a desire for self-importance or recognition (vanity), while ordinary behaviors stem from established routines (habit). Additionally, the less admirable actions are frequently driven by fear, indicating a complexity in human motivation where both the admirable and the base are intertwined.
Themes
VanityHabitFearHuman BehaviorPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a psychology lecture, this quote could serve as a basis for discussing human motivations.
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes βThat 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 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.
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The anarchist and the Christian have a common origin.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
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