Anyone who despises himself will still respect himself as a…

Anyone who despises himself will still respect himself as a despiser.

Chapter IV: Maxims and Interludes, Aphorism 78

Other Beyond Good and Evil Quotes

One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to whom he can be a midwife: thus originates a good conversation. - View Quote Details on One seeks a midwife for his thoughts, another someone to…
Independence is an issue that concerns very few people: — it is a prerogative of the strong. And even when somebody has every right to be independent, if he attempts such a thing without having to do so, he proves that he is probably not only strong, but brave to the point of madness. He enters a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers already inherent in the very act of living, not the least of which is the fact that no one with eyes will see how and where he gets lost and lonely and is torn limb from limb by some cave-Minotaur of conscience. And assuming a man like this is destroyed, it is an event so far from human comprehension that people do not feel it or feel for him: — and he cannot go back again! He cannot go back to their pity again! - View Quote Details on Independence is an issue that concerns very few people: —…
The sage as astronomer. — If you still experience the stars as something “over you,” you still don’t have the eyes of a knower. - View Quote Details on The sage as astronomer. — If you still experience the…
So you want to live ‘according to nature?’ Oh, you noble Stoics, what a fraud is in this phrase! Imagine something like nature, profligate without measure, indifferent without measure, without purpose and regard, without mercy and justice, fertile and barren and uncertain at the same time, think of indifference itself as power — how could you live according to this indifference? Living — isn’t that wanting specifically to be something other than this nature? Isn’t living assessing, preferring, being unfair, being limited, wanting to be different? And assuming your imperative to ‘live according to nature’ basically amounts to ‘living according to life’ — well how could you not? Why make a principle out of what you yourselves are and must be? - View Quote Details on So you want to live ‘according to nature?’ Oh, you…
It is some basic certainty which the noble soul has about itself, something which does not allow itself to be sought out or found or perhaps even to be lost. The noble soul has reverence for itself. - View Quote Details on It is some basic certainty which the noble soul has…
People used to believe in ‘the soul’ as they believed in grammar and the grammatical subject: people said that ‘I’ was a condition and ‘think’ was a predicate and conditioned — thinking is an activity and a subject must be thought of as its cause. Now, with admirable tenacity and cunning, people are wondering whether they can get out of this net — wondering whether the reverse might be true: that ‘think’ is the condition and ‘I’ is conditioned, in which case ‘I’ would be a synthesis that only gets produced through thought itself. - View Quote Details on People used to believe in ‘the soul’ as they believed…
One has only seen little of life, if one hasn’t also seen the hand that mercifully — kills. - View Quote Details on One has only seen little of life, if one hasn’t…
Ober Das, was “Wahrhaftigkeit” ist, war vielleicht noch Niemand wahrhaftig genug. - View Quote Details on Ober Das, was “Wahrhaftigkeit” ist, war vielleicht noch Niemand wahrhaftig…
In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous, like delicate hands on a cyclops. - View Quote Details on In a man devoted to knowledge, pity seems almost ridiculous,…
There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to their god, perhaps even sacrificing those they loved the best… Then, during the moral epoch of humanity, people sacrificed the strongest instincts they had, their ‘nature,’ to their god; the joy of this particular festival shines in the cruel eyes of the ascetic, that enthusiastic piece of ‘anti-nature.’ Finally: what was left to be sacrificed? In the end, didn’t people have to sacrifice all comfort and hope, everything holy or healing, any faith in hidden harmony or a future filled with justice and bliss? Didn’t people have to sacrifice God himself and worship rocks, stupidity, gravity, fate, or nothingness out of sheer cruelty to themselves? To sacrifice God for nothingness — that paradoxical mystery of the final cruelty has been reserved for the race that is now approaching: by now we all know something about this. - View Quote Details on There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of…