Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was a German writer, poet, and philosopher, renowned for his influential works in literature and science. His most famous work, Faust, is a dramatic masterpiece that explores human ambition and the search for meaning. Goethe was also a key figure in the Sturm und Drang movement and made significant contributions to philosophy, natural sciences, and aesthetics.
People are always talking about originality, but what do they mean? As soon as we are born, the world begins to work upon us, and this goes on to the end. And, after all, what can we call our own except energy, strength, and will? If I could give an account of all that I owe to great predecessors and contemporaries, there would be but a small balance in my favor.
Tags: originality, influence
Where the populace eat and drink, and even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air.
Tags: dissent, self-reliance, religion, free spirit
A man who has depths in his shame meets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon paths which few ever reach, and with regard to the existence of which his nearest and most intimate friends may be ignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes, and equally so his regained security.
Tags: refinement-of-the-soul, contrition, skeletons-in-the-closet, regained-sense-of-self
Such a hidden nature, which instinctively employs speech for silence and concealment, and is inexhaustible in evasion of communication, desires and insists that a mask of himself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of his friends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes will some day be opened to the fact that there is nevertheless a mask of him there- and that it is well to be so.
Tags: nature, principle
A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shall venture to baptize them by a name not without danger. As far as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves to be understood- for it is their nature to wish to remain something of a puzzle- these philosophers of the future might rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designated as 'tempters.' This name itself is after all only an attempt, or, if it be preferred, a temptation.
Tags: nature, principle
Friedrich Nietzsche
One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people. 'Good' is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. And how could there be a 'common good!' The expression contradicts itself; that which can be common is always of small value.
Tags: nature, principle
Friedrich Nietzsche
"THE SIX BLADES OF NIETZSCHE'S CLEAVER- Cleaving the Cleaver"
(Nietzsche's not to cleaves for the "free spirit")
*Originated title by Stephen Paul
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One must subject oneself to one’s own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one’s tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge.
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1.) Not to cleave to any person, be it even the dearest—every person is a prison and also a recess.
2.) Not to cleave to a fatherland, be it even the most suffering and necessitous—it is even less difficult to detach one's heart from a victorious fatherland.
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3.) Not to cleave to a sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiar torture and helplessness chance has given us an insight.
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4.)Not to cleave to a science, though it tempt one with the most valuable discoveries, apparently specially reserved for us.
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5.) Not to cleave to one's own liberation, to the voluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, which always flies further aloft in order always to see more under it—the danger of the flier.
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6.) Not to cleave to our own virtues, nor become as a whole a victim to any of our specialties, to our "hospitality" for instance, which is the danger of dangers for highly developed and wealthy souls, who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with themselves, and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes a vice.
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One must know how TO CONSERVE ONESELF—the best test of independence.
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Tags: independence, free-spirit
Friedrich Nietzsche
'Enlightenment' causes revolt: for the slave desires the unconditioned, he understands nothing but the tyrannous, even in morals; he loves as he hates, without nuance, to the very depths, to the point of pain , to the point of sickness - his many hidden sufferings make him revolt against the noble taste which seems to deny suffering.
Tags: nature, principle
Friedrich Nietzsche