Christianity remains to this day the greatest misfortune of humanity.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Sharp and mild, dull and keen, well known and strange, dirty and clean, where both the fool and wise are seen: All this am I, have ever been, - in me dove, snake and swine convene!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote explores the duality of existence, reflecting on the complexity of human nature and the coexistence of opposites within oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche's quote delves into the paradoxical nature of humanity, acknowledging that within each person exists a multitude of traits and contradictions, from wisdom to folly, purity to impurity. The imagery of the dove, snake, and swine symbolizes the various aspects of the human psyche, suggesting that we embody both noble and ignoble qualities, and that embracing this complexity is essential to understanding ourselves.
Themes
DualityHuman NatureComplexitySelf-AwarenessPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about personal growth, one might say, 'As Nietzsche pointed out, we embody both the fool and the wise within us, encouraging self-reflection.'
More from Friedrich Nietzsche
All quotes →That 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 — 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
Similar quotes
We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.
Thomas AquinasRead
The worst thing for a writer is to know another writer, and worse than that, to know a number of other writers. Like flies on the same turd.
Charles BukowskiRead
The weight of the world is on our shoulders, its vision is through our eyes; if we blink or look aside, or turn back to finger what Plato said or remember Napoleon and his conquests, we inflict on the world the injury of some obliquity. This is life.
Virginia WoolfRead
Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!
Harriet Beecher StoweRead
The bad thing about small-town life is that everybody knows your business...I suppose that is my central obsession. What we owe to society, what we owe to ourselves.
Barbara KingsolverRead
There is a terrific disadvantage in not having the abrasive quality of the press applied to you daily. Even though we never like it, and even though we wish they didn't write it, and even though we disapprove, there isn't any doubt that we could not do the job at all in a free society without a very, very active press.
John F. KennedyRead