Friedrich Nietzsche Nihilism Quotes

It is a self-deception of philosophers and moralists to imagine that they escape decadence by opposing it. That is beyond their will; and, however little they acknowledge it, one later discovers that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

It is intoxicating joy for the sufferer to look away from his suffering and to forget himself.

Virtue is under certain circumstances merely an honorable form of stupidity: who could be ill-disposed toward it on that account? And this kind of virtue has not been outlived even today. A kind of sturdy peasant simplicity, which, however, is possible in all classes and can be encountered only with respect and a smile, believes even today that everything is in good hands, namely in the "hands of God"; and when it maintains this proportion with the same modest certainty as it would that two and two make four, we others certainly refrain from contradicting. Why disturb THIS pure foolishness? Why darken it with our worries about man, people, goal, future? And even if we wanted to do it, we could not. They project their own honorable stupidity and goodness into the heart of things (the old God, deus myops, still lives among them!); we others — we read something else into the heart of things: our own enigmatic nature, our contradictions, our deeper, more painful, more mistrustful wisdom.

Nihilism is…not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one shoulder to the plough; one destroys.

Nietzsche says very clearly all the way through his career that if you want to define human nature the first thing you must say is that human beings insist on value--we see the world through value colored eyes. We do not know how to look at things neutrally, value-free. So, it's not a question of giving up all values, it's simply a question of which values.

What does nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; 'why?' finds no answer.

Now I go alone, my disciples, You too, go now alone. Thus I want it. Go away from me and resist Zarathustra! And even better: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you… One pays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why do you not want to pluck at my wreath? You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Beware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters Zarathustra? You are my believers – but what matter all believers? You had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you to lose me and find yourselves; and only then when you have all denied me will I return to you… that I may celebrate the great noon with you.

I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength.

What does Nihilism mean?—That the highest values are losing their value.

I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes master of this crisis, is a question of his strength

Pity preserves things that are ripe for decline, it defends things that have been disowned and condemned by life, and it gives a depressive and questionable character to life itself by keeping alive an abundance of failures of every type. People have dared to call pity a virtue… people have gone even further, making it into the virtue, the foundation and source of all virtues, - but of course you always have to keep in mind that this was the perspective of a nihilistic philosophy that inscribed the negation of life on its shield. Schopenhauer was right here: pity negates life, it makes life worthy of negation, - pity is the practice of nihilism. Once more: this depressive and contagious instinct runs counter to the instincts that preserve and enhance the value of life: by multiplying misery just as much as by conserving everything miserable, pity is one of the main tools used to increase decadence - pity wins people over to nothingness! … You do not say ‘nothingness’ : instead you say ‘the beyond’; or ‘God’; or ‘the true life’; or nirvana, salvation, blessedness … This innocent rhetoric from the realm of religious-moral idiosyncrasy suddenly appears much less innocent when you see precisely which tendencies are wrapped up inside these sublime words: tendencies hostile to life.

Life itself appears to me as an instinct for growth, for survival, for the accumulation of forces, for power: whenever the will to power fails there is disaster. My contention is that all the highest values of humanity have been emptied of this will—that the values of décadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest names. 7. Christianity is called the religion of pity.—Pity stands in

When we hear the ancient bells growling on a Sunday morning we ask ourselves: Is it really possible! This, for a jew, crucified two thousand years ago, who said he was God's son? The proof of such a claim is lacking. Certainly the Christian religion is an antiquity projected into our times from remote prehistory; and the fact that the claim is believed - whereas one is otherwise so strict in examining pretensions - is perhaps the most ancient piece of this heritage. A god who begets children with a mortal woman; a sage who bids men work no more, have no more courts, but look for the signs of the impending end of the world; a justice that accepts the innocent as a vicarious sacrifice; someone who orders his disciples to drink his blood; prayers for miraculous interventions; sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god; fear of a beyond to which death is the portal; the form of the cross as a symbol in a time that no longer knows the function and ignominy of the cross -- how ghoulishly all this touches us, as if from the tomb of a primeval past! Can one believe that such things are still believed?

Back then you carried your ashes to the mountain; would you now carry your fire into the alley?

The work of a suffering and tortured God, the world then seemed to me. The dream and fiction of a god, the world then seemed to me.; coloured smoke before the eyes of a discontented god. [...] The creator wished to look away from himself; so he created the world. [...] a drunken joy to its imperfect creator.

The faith in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism. We have measured the value of the world according to categories that refer to a purely fictitious world.

There is an ancient story that King Midas hunted in the forest a long time for the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, without capturing him. When Silenus at last fell into his hands, the king asked what was the best and most desirable of all things for man. Fixed and immovable, the demigod said not a word, till at last, urged by the king, he gave a shrill laugh and broke out into these words: ‘Oh, wretched ephemeral race, children of chance and misery, why do you compel me to tell you what it would be most expedient for you not to hear? What is best of all is utterly beyond your reach: not to be born, not to be, to be nothing. But the second best for you is—to die soon.

S-ar putea să existe chiar fanatici puritani ai conştiinţei care să dorească a muri culcaţi mai degrabă pe un Nimic cert decât pe un Ceva nesigur. Dar acesta e nihilism, însemnul unui suflet deznădăjduit şi dezgustat de moarte, oricât de curajoase ar părea atitudinile unei astfel de virtuţi.

I am weary of my wisdom, like a bee that has gathered too much honey. I need hands that reach out.

This cup wants to become empty again, and Zarathustra wants to become human again.

Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?

Nihilism. It is ambiguous: A. Nihilism as a sign of increased power of the spirit: as active nihilism. B. Nihilism as decline and recession of the power of the spirit: as passive nihilism.

If the Christian dogmas of a revengeful God, universal sinfulness, election by divine grace and the danger of eternal damnation were true, it would be a sign of weak-mindedness and lack of character not to become a priest, apostle or hermit and, in fear and trembling, to work solely on one's own salvation; it would be senseless to lose sight of ones eternal advantage for the sake of temporal comfort. If we may assume that these things are at any rate believed true, then the everyday Christian cuts a miserable figure; he is a man who really cannot count to three, and who precisely on account of his spiritual imbecility does not deserve to be punished so harshly as Christianity promises to punish him. from Nietzsche's Human, all too Human

He that speaks here, conversely, has done nothing so far but reflect: a philosopher and solitary by instinct, who has found his advantage in standing aside and outside, in patience, in procrastination, in staying behind; as a spirit of daring and experiment that has already lost its way once in every labyrinth of the future; as a soothsayer-bird spirit who looks back when relating what will come; as the first perfect nihilist of Europe who, however, has even now lived through the whole of nihilism, to the end, leaving it behind, outside himself.

Nihilism appears at that point, not that the displeasure of existence has become greater than before but because one has come to mistrust any “meaning” in suffering, indeed in existence. …it now seems as if there is no meaning at all in existence, as if everything were in vain.

For, why is the triumph of Nihilism inevitable now? Because the very values current amongst us to-day will arrive at their logical conclusion in Nihilism,—because Nihilism is the only possible outcome of our greatest values and ideals,—because we must first experience Nihilism before we can realise what the actual worth of these “values” was....

Let us look one another in the face. We are Hyperboreans—we know well enough how much out of the way we live. 'Neither by land nor sea shalt thou find the road to the Hyperboreans': Pindar already knew that of us. Beyond the North, beyond the ice, beyond death—our life, our happiness.... We have discovered happiness, we know the road, we have found the exit out of whole millennia of labyrinth. Who else has found it? Modern man perhaps? 'I know not which way to turn; I am everything that knows not which way to turn,' sighs modern man.... It was from this modernity that we were ill—from lazy peace, from cowardly compromise, from the whole virtuous uncleanliness of modern Yes and No. This tolerance and largeur of heart which 'forgives' everything because it 'Understands' everything is sirocco to us. Better to live among ice than among modern virtues and other south winds! ...We were brave enough, we spared neither ourselves nor others: but for long we did not know where to apply our courage. We became gloomy, we were called fatalists. Our fatality—was the plenitude, the tension, the blocking-up of our forces. We thirsted for lightning and action, of all things we kept ourselves furthest from the happiness of the weaklings, from 'resignation'.... There was a thunderstorm in our air, the nature which we are grew dark—for we had no road. Formula of our happiness: a Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal...

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

My contention is that all the highest values of humanity have been emptied of this will—that the values of décadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest names.

God is Dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we - we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.

Meine Härte Ich muss weg über hundert Stufen, Ich muss empor und hör euch rufen: "Hart bist du; sind wir denn von Stein?" — Ich muss weg über hundert Stufen, Und Niemand möchte Stufe sein.

Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!"—As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why! is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea-voyage? Has he emigrated?—the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him,—you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Back-wards, sideways, forewards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction?—for even Gods putrefy! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife,—who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event,—and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!"—Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said, "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is travelling,—it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star,—and yet they have done it!"—It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem æternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?

…why has the advent of nihilism become necessary? Because the values we have had hitherto thus draw their final consequence; because nihilism represents the ultimate logical conclusion of our great values and ideals…

The whole idealism of humanity ... is on the point of tipping into nihilism — into the belief in absolute valuelessness, that is, meaninglessness... The annihilation of ideals, the new wasteland, the new arts of enduring it, we amphibians.

Man, the bravest of animals and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far―and the ascetic ideal offered man meaning! It was the only meaning offered so far; any meaning is better than none at all; the ascetic ideal was in every sense the "faute de mieux" par excellence so far. In it, suffering was interpreted; the tremendous void seemed to have been filled; the door was closed to any kind of suicidal nihilism. This interpretation - there is no doubt of it - brought fresh suffering with it, deeper, more inward, more poisonous, more life-destructive suffering: it placed all suffering under the perspective of guilt. But all this notwithstanding - man was saved thereby, he possessed a meaning, he was henceforth no longer 1ike a leaf in the wind, a plaything of nonsense - the "sense-less" - he could now willsomething; no matter at first to what end, why, with what he willed: the will itself was saved. We can no longer conceal from ourselves what is expressed by all that willing which has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hatred of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing itself. All this means - let us dare to grasp it - a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life; but it is and remains a will. Man would rather will nothingness than not will at all.

The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness — he must come one day.

Nihilism, a normal condition. It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself. It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism. Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) [Pg 22]decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.

God is Dead; but given the way of men, therem ay still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. And we - we still have to vanquish his shadow, too. -- The death of the fundamental principle which gave life a meaning is just the beginning. People are not ready to accept nihilism and cling to old values for comfort. Thus, we as humanity still have to get over the "shadow" of the old thinking which still permeates society.

The causes of nihilism: (1) The higher species is lacking, i.e., the species whose inexhaustible fruitfulness and power would uphold our belief in man. (2) The inferior species ("herd," "mass," "society") is forgetting modesty, and inflates its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way all life is vulgarized, for inasmuch as the mass of mankind rules, it tyrannizes over the exceptions, so that these lose their belief in themselves and become nihilists.

The development of pessimism into nihilism…. – The repudiated world versus an artificially built ‘true, valuable’ one. Finally: one discovers how the true world is fabricated solely from psychological needs: and now all one has left is the ‘repudiated world’, and one adds this supreme disappointment to the reasons why it deserves to be repudiated. At this point nihilism is reached:…one grants the reality of becoming as the only reality… — but cannot endure this world…

But someday, in a stronger age than this decaying, self-doubting present, he must yet come to us, the redeeming man, of great love and contempt, the creative spirit whose compelling strength will not let him rest in any aloofness or any beyond, whose isolation is misunderstood by the people as if it were flight from reality — while it is only his absorption, immersion, penetration into reality, so that, when he one day emerges again into the light, he may bring home the redemption of this reality; it's redemption from the curse that the hitherto reigning ideal has laid upon it. The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness — he must come one day.

It is possible to understand Nietzsche's fulminations against modern politics in the same light as those against morality: given the nihilistic nature of modern valuation systems, all attempts at asserting values, whether in morality or politics, must, of necessity, encourage the onslaught of nihilism. A short reflection of the consequences of the modern mixture of morality and politics and the ensuing ideological conflicts should give one pause before condemning Nietzsche's attack on morality. He is saying that the fact which makes modern politics so dangerous is precisely that morality and politics are of necessity tied.

For the situation is this: our greatest peril lurks in the European drift towards egalitarianism, for it is this prospect which wearies us – we see today nothing which wishes to be greater, we surmise that everything is still, retreating, going backwards, regressing towards something more reserved, more inoffensive, more cunning, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese,66 more Christian – man, there is no doubt about it, grows always ‘better’ … the destiny of Europe lies precisely in this – that in losing our fear of man, we have also lost the hope in man, respect for man, the will to be man. The sight of man now wearies us – what is present-day nihilism if it is not that? … We are tired of man.

Some have dared to call pity a virtue (in every noble ethic it is considered a weakness); and as if this were not enough, it has been made the virtue, the basis and source of all virtues. To be sure—and one should always keep this in mind—this was done by a philosophy that was nihilistic and had inscribed the negation of life upon its shield. Schopenhauer was consistent enough: pity negates life and renders it more deserving of negation. Pity is the practice of nihilism. To repeat: this depressive and contagious instinct crosses those instincts which aim at the preservation of life and at the enhancement of its value. It multiplies misery and conserves all that is miserable, and is thus a prime instrument of the advancement of decadence: pity persuades men to nothingness!

Causes of the advent of pessimism: the most powerful desires of life have been hitherto the most slandered, so that a curse weighs on life. For we comprehend that these self-same instincts are inseparable from life, and one therefore turns against life. Whereas the mass, which has no feeling at all for this conflict, flourishes, while the conflicted type miscarries and, as a product of degeneration, invites antipathy–that the mediocre, on the other hand, when they pose as the goal and meaning of existence, arouse nausea and indignation. And the individual, faced with this tremendous machinery, loses courage and submits. The herd, the mass, 'society', unlearns modesty and blows up its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way the whole of existence is vulgarised; and in so far as the mass is dominant it bullies the exceptions, so that they lose faith in themselves and become nihilists. The question 'for what?', after a painful struggle, even victory. That something is a hundred times more important than the question of whether we feel well or not–and consequently whether others feel well or not. The predominance of suffering over pleasure, or its opposite (hedonism) are already signposts to nihilism. For in both cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or pain. But for any worthy man, the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. A suffering might predominate, and in spite of this, a powerful will might exist, a Yes to life, a need and acceptance of this predominance.

The foundation of all pathology is nihilism as a general psychological state of experience. Nihilism occurs when all ideological systems collapse— and this includes the cereal meanings generated by culture. The normal person avoids the extreme feelings of nihilism by desperately clinging to those meanings and values implanted by culture, childhood and a weak biology, regardless of how irrational, painful and dull these meaning systems seem to be. Healing occurs when the person regains his feelings of power and reinstates his ability to create meaning structures. This theory is based on Friedrich Nietzsche's observation that the world is a work of art, created by the self. The "pathological" person is a failed artist, while the "normal" person has accepted consensual art and, in this sense, does not own the concept of personhood. In this context it is important to constantly keep in mind that the person himself is the work of art. Healing occurs in the will to create and form the world and self as one's own creation. The feeling of power, and the rational application of it to the ends of ones own creation, is the primary reflection of health.

Causes of the advent of pessimism: The most powerful desires of life have been hitherto the most slandered, so that a curse weighs on life. For we comprehend that these self-same instincts are inseparable from life, and one therefore turns against life. Whereas the mass, which has no feeling at all for this conflict, flourishes, while the conflicted type miscarries and, as a product of degeneration, invites antipathy–that the mediocre, on the other hand, when they pose as the goal and meaning of existence, arouse nausea and indignation. And the individual, faced with this tremendous machinery, loses courage and submits. The herd, the mass, 'society', unlearns modesty and blows up its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way the whole of existence is vulgarised; and in so far as the mass is dominant it bullies the exceptions, so that they lose faith in themselves and become nihilists. The question 'for what?', after a painful struggle, even victory. That something is a hundred times more important than the question of whether we feel well or not–and consequently whether others feel well or not. The predominance of suffering over pleasure, or its opposite (hedonism) are already signposts to nihilism. For in both cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or pain. But for any worthy man, the value of life is certainly not measured by the standard of these trifles. A suffering might predominate, and in spite of this, a powerful will might exist, a Yes to life, a need and acceptance of this predominance

Nihilism, as the denial of a truthful world, of being, might be a divine way of thinking.

Le secret pour moissonner l’existence la plus féconde et la plus grande jouissance de la vie, c’est de vivre dangereusement ! Construisez vos villes près du Vésuve ! Envoyez vos vaisseaux dans les mers inexplorées ! Vivez en guerres avec vos semblables et avec vous-mêmes ! Soyez brigands et conquérants, tant que vous ne pouvez pas être dominateurs et possesseurs, vous qui cherchez la connaissance ! Bientôt le temps passera où vous vous satisferez de vivre cachés dans les forêts comme des cerfs effarouchés ! Enfin la connaissance finira par étendre la main vers ce qui lui appartient de droit : — elle voudra dominer et posséder, et vous le voudrez avec elle !

Saggezza del mondo. Non rimanere in piano! Non salire troppo in alto! Il mondo è più bello se visto a mezza altezza.

Man, the bravest of animals and the one most accustomed to suffering, does not repudiate suffering as such; he desires it, he even seeks it out, provided he is shown a meaning for it, a purpose of suffering. The meaninglessness of suffering, not suffering itself, was the curse that lay over mankind so far -- and the ascetic ideal offered man meaning! It was the only meaning offered so far; any meaning is better than none at all; the ascetic ideal was in every sense the "faute de mieux" par excellence so far. In it, suffering was interpreted; the tremendous void seemed to have been filled; the door was closed to any kind of suicidal nihilism. This interpretation - there is no doubt of it - brought fresh suffering with it, deeper, more inward, more poisonous, more life-destructive suffering: it placed all suffering under the perspective of guilt. But all this notwithstanding - man was saved thereby, he possessed a meaning, he was henceforth no longer 1ike a leaf in the wind, a plaything of nonsense - the "sense-less" - he could now willsomething; no matter at first to what end, why, with what he willed: the will itself was saved. We can no longer conceal from ourselves what is expressed by all that willing which has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hatred of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this longing to get away from all appearance, change, becoming, death, wishing, from longing itself. All this means - let us dare to grasp it - a will to nothingness, an aversion to life, a rebellion against the most fundamental presuppositions of life; but it is and remains a will. Man would rather will nothingness than not will at all.

There has recently been a great deal of idle talk using a loose and altogether inapplicable term: pessimism. Everywhere the talk is about pessimism, and everywhere people (occasionally even sensible people!) are wrangling over a specific question which they think admits of an answer: whether optimism or pessimism is correct. What they do not understand, although it is palpable, is that pessimism is not a problem but a symptom, that the term should be replaced by nihilism, that the question of whether it is better to be or not to be, is itself an illness, a decline in strength, a kind of hypersensitivity. The pessimistic movement is only an expression of physiological decadence...

The man of the future who will redeem us not only from the hitherto reigning ideal but also from that which was bound to grow out of it, the great nausea, the will to nothingness, nihilism; this bell stroke of noon and of the great decision that liberates the will again and restores its goal to the earth and his hope to man; this Antichrist and anti-nihilist; this victor over God and nothingness ― he must come one day.

The causes of nihilism: (1) The higher species is lacking, i.e., the species whose inexhaustible fruitfulness and power would uphold our belief in man. (2) The inferior species ("herd," "mass," "society") is forgetting modesty, and inflates its needs into cosmic and metaphysical values. In this way all life is vulgarized, for inasmuch as the mass of mankind rules, it tyrannizes over the exceptions, so that these lose their belief in themselves and become nihilists.

My contention is that all the highest values of humanity have been emptied of the Will to Power—that the values of décadence, of nihilism, now prevail under the holiest of names: Christianity. The religion of pity...

The belief in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism we have measured the worth of the world according to categories which can only be applied to a purely fictitious world. Conclusion: All values with which we have tried, hitherto, to lend the world some worth, from our point of view, and with which we have therefore deprived it of all worth (once these values have been shown to be inapplicable) all these values, are, psychologically, the results of certain views of utility, established for the purpose of maintaining and increasing the dominion of certain communities: but falsely projected into the nature of things. It is always man’s exaggerated ingenuousness to regard himself as the sense and measure of all things.

We can see nothing today that wants to grow greater, we suspect that things will continue to go down, down, to become thinner, more good-natured, more prudent, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent… Here precisely is what has become a fatality…together with the fear of man we have also lost our love of him, our reverence for him, our hopes for him, even the will to him. The sight of man now makes us weary—what is nihilism today if it is not that?—We are weary of man.

Pity preserves things that are ripe for decline, it defends things that have been disowned and condemned by life, and it gives a depressive and questionable character to life itself by keeping alive an abundance of failures of every type. People have dared to call pity a virtue… people have gone even further, making it into the virtue, the foundation and source of all virtues, - but of course you always have to keep in mind that this was the perspective of a nihilistic philosophy that inscribed the negation of life on its shield. Schopenhauer was right here: pity negates life, it makes life worthy of negation, - pity is the practice of nihilism. Once more: this depressive and contagious instinct runs counter to the instincts that preserve and enhance the value of life: by multiplying misery just as much as by conserving everything miserable, pity is one of the main tools used to increase decadence - pity wins people over to nothingness! … You do not say ‘nothingness’: instead you say ‘the beyond’; or ‘God’; or ‘the true life’; or nirvana, salvation, blessedness … This innocent rhetoric from the realm of religious-moral idiosyncrasy suddenly appears much less innocent when you see precisely which tendencies are wrapped up inside these sublime words: tendencies hostile to life.

The democratic idiosyncrasy against everything which rules and wishes to rule, the modern misarchism (to coin a bad word for a bad thing), has gradually but so thoroughly transformed itself into the guise of intellectualism, the most abstract intellectualism, that even nowadays it penetrates and has the right to penetrate step by step into the most exact and apparently the most objective sciences: this tendency has, in fact, in my view already dominated the whole of physiology and biology, and to their detriment, as is obvious, in so far as it has spirited away a radical idea, the idea of true activity. The tyranny of this idiosyncrasy, however, results in the theory of "adaptation" being pushed forward into the van of the argument, exploited; adaptation—that means to say, a second-class activity, a mere capacity for "reacting"; in fact, life itself has been defined (by Herbert Spencer) as an increasingly effective internal adaptation to external circumstances. This definition, however, fails to realise the real essence of life, its will to power. It fails to appreciate the paramount superiority enjoyed by those plastic forces of spontaneity, aggression, and encroachment with their new interpretations and tendencies, to the operation of which adaptation is only a natural corollary: consequently the sovereign office of the highest functionaries in the organism itself (among which the life-will appears as an active and formative principle) is repudiated. One remembers Huxley's reproach to Spencer of his "administrative Nihilism": but it is a case of something much more than "administration.

Christianity is called the religion of compassion [Mitleid].—compassion stands in antithesis to the tonic emotions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive eff ect. One loses force when one has compassion. Th e loss of force which life has already sustained through suff ering is increased and multiplied even further by compassion. Suffering itself becomes contagious through compassion... its morally dangerous character appears in a much clearer light. Compassion on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction, it defends life’s disinherited and condemned; through the abundance of the ill-constituted of all kinds which it retains in life it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect. One has ventured to call compassion a virtue (—in every noble morality it counts as weakness—)... compassion is practical nihilism... compassion persuades to nothingness!... [compassion is] hostile to life. Schopenhauer [therefore] was hostile to life: therefore compassion became for him a virtue.

Christianity is called the religion of compassion [Mitleid].—compassion stands in antithesis to the tonic emotions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: it has a depressive effect. One loses force when one has compassion. The loss of force which life has already sustained through suff ering is increased and multiplied even further by compassion. Suffering itself becomes contagious through compassion... its morally dangerous character appears in a much clearer light. Compassion on the whole thwarts the law of evolution, which is the law of selection. It preserves what is ripe for destruction, it defends life’s disinherited and condemned; through the abundance of the ill-constituted of all kinds which it retains in life it gives life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect. One has ventured to call compassion a virtue (—in every noble morality it counts as weakness—)... compassion is practical nihilism... compassion persuades to nothingness!... [compassion is] hostile to life. Schopenhauer [therefore] was hostile to life: therefore compassion became for him a virtue.

The ‘predominance of suffering over pleasure’ or the opposite (hedonism): these two doctrines are already signposts to nihilism. For in both of these cases no ultimate meaning is posited except the appearance of pleasure or of displeasure.