The Will to Power
The great Methodologists: Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Auguste Comte.
The most valuable knowledge is always discovered last: but the most valuable knowledge consists of methods.
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The metaphysico-logical postulates, the belief in substance, accident, attribute, etc. etc., draws its convincing character from our habit of regarding all our actions as the result of our will: so that the ego, as substance, does not vanish in the multiplicity of changes.—But there is no such thing as will
The whole apparatus of knowledge is an abstracting and simplifying apparatus—
All human knowledge is either experience or mathematics.
The teaching of Being, of things, and of all those constant entities, is a hundred times more easy than the teaching of Becoming and of evolution.
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There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes—therefore there must be many kinds of “truths,” and consequently there can be no truth.
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“Une croyance presque instinctive chez moi c’est que tout homme puissant ment quand il parle et à plus forte raison quand il écrit.”
We distinguish ourselves, the agents, from the action, and everywhere we make use of this scheme—we try to discover an agent behind every phenomenon.
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The so-called instinct of causality is nothing more than the fear of the unfamiliar, and the attempt at finding something in it which is already known.—It is not a search for causes, but for the familiar.
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as soon as a superior power prevails over an inferior power, and the latter proceeds to work as a function of the former, an order of rank is established,
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That is to say; there is nothing without other things. That is to say; there is no “thing-in-itself.”
Brave and creative men never make pleasure and pain ultimate questions—they
Wisdom is an attempt to overcome the perspective valuations (i.e. the “will to power”): it is a principle which is both unfriendly to Life, and also decadent; a symptom in the case of the Indians, etc.; weakness of the power of appropriation.
it is merely a vital condition under which, alone, a living organism can preserve itself and prosper: a great solid belt of ignorance must stand about you.
Becoming is inventing, willing, self-denying, self-overcoming; no subject but an action, it places things, it is creative, no “causes and effects.”
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The uselessness of old ideals for the interpretation of all that takes place, once their bestial origin and utility have been recognised, they are, moreover, all hostile to life.
All the idealism of mankind, hitherto, is on the point of turning into Nihilism—may be shown to be a belief in absolute worthlessness, i.e. purposelessness.
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Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness. My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms with those (by “combining” with those) which are sufficiently related to it—and thus they conspire together for power. And the process continues.
The fundamental phenomena: innumerable individuals are sacrificed for the sake of a few, in order to make the few possible.—
Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd.
all great men have been criminals
There is no relationship between work done and money received; the individual should, according to his kind, be so placed as to perform the highest that is compatible with his powers.
Closely related thereto is the “genius.” The “great adventurers and criminals” and all great men, the most healthy in particular, have always been sick at certain periods of their lives—
We should substitute morality by the will to our own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
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For a personality to be possible, timely isolation and the necessity for an existence of offence and defence, are prerequisites;
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a man should look upon himself with an adventurous spirit; he should experiment with himself and run risks with himself—
He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he thinks it bad taste to become familiar; and as a rule he is not familiar when people think he is. When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a mask. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and will.
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We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts: greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either.
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The more lofty philosophical man who is surrounded by loneliness, not because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot find his equal…
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to hear the inferior and the poor in spirit having their say is a terrible ear-splitting torment for him who knows and trembles at the thought,
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He grows stronger under the misfortunes which threaten to annihilate him.
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He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books, with men, or with Nature.
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amor fati.