NationStates Jolt Archive

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"

As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances.

"Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers. But how have we done this? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What did we do when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not perpetually falling? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there any up or down left? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is it not more and more night coming on all the time? Must not lanterns be lit in the morning? Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whosoever shall be born after us - for the sake of this deed he shall be part of a higher history than all history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and again regarded his listeners; and they too were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern to the ground, and it broke and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time has not come yet. The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."

It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?" - Fredrich Nietzsche

O SON OF BEING!
Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant.

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!"

...

Yeah, I know what he wrote in Also Sprach Zarathustra - what is your opinion on it?, or are you just going to cut-and-paste the whole novel?

Fredrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche.

Those are lovely, but it really doesn't answer my question.

Those are lovely, but it really doesn't answer my question.

What is your question?

Nietzsche is dead.

God has killed him.

I admire Nietzsche so.

Yeah.. I remember that joke. :)

Elizabeth
Nietzsche was a vile piece of anti-semitic filth.

Elizabeth
Nietzsche was a vile piece of anti-semitic filth.
I know you're joking...right?
If not I will devour your soul.

Elizabeth
Nietzsche was a vile piece of anti-semitic filth.

Its amazing that people actually think this.

Elizabeth
Nietzsche was a vile piece of anti-semitic filth.Yep, when he wrote "The Jews are, however, without any doubt, the strongest, most flexible, and purest race that is now living in Europe.” (Beyond Good And Evil) he was just oozing anti-semitism. Filth I'll take (his personal life was not a good model to emulate), but his opposition to the concept of organized religion does not make him an anti-semite. If you actually read his works, he has a rather high opinion of the Jewish race, it is the religions that have come out of Judaism that he finds bothersome.

Please, tell me you know how to find white text.

How did you guys manage to quote BWO without reading his entire post?

they might have been playing the fool

How did you guys manage to quote BWO without reading his entire post?
I got the "Elizabeth", just couldn't place it. Still cannot.

I got the "Elizabeth", just couldn't place it. Still cannot.

Travelling off to Paraguay with her despicable husband to set up their aryan colony of Nueva Germania? Parading her broken brother as a new messiah dressed in white? Editing his unpublished manuscripts without grasping his most basic concepts? Setting up the Nietzsche Museum after the poor man's death in order to continue making a profit off him? Playing host to visits from Hitler and other high ranking Nazis?


Now, Friedrich Nietzsche... an anti-semite? No.

But if you read enough Elizabeth she also was filth, but anti-semitic only as a means to an ends. From some of her lettters explaining herself, she saw anti-semiticism as a way to power and grabbed it (which is sorta what her brother explained as the actions of the superman until God was truely dead for the masses). I supose if you equate anti-semitism as a means to power without belief as anti-semitism, then sure she was anti-semitic - but then again since Nietzche's popularity came about because of her painting his writings as anti-semitic, then he also was anti-semitic even though he believed otherwise.

[b]Also Spach Zarathustra


Its actually Thus Spake Zarathustra

If you want to see Nietschze at his anti-religious finest, read The Anti-Christ.

(which is sorta what her brother explained as the actions of the superman until God was truely dead for the masses).

Itis Overman or Overperson which is the best English translation, although a lot of meaning is still lost...

Hmm. Coincidentally, I have to write a report on Nietzsche by tomorrow.

Nietzche was great! I remember a nifty quote that fits to some weirdos of our time:

"It's impossible to talk to a martyr, because he's inaccessible to reason."

- Friedrich Nietzche, "The Antichrist"

"There is no pre-established harmony between the furtherance of truth and the well-being of mankind"

Remember that next time someone gives you a dollar extra in change.

...or hopefully not.

Its actually Thus Spake Zarathustra

That's the English translation, I was using the original German, but for some reason left out the 'R' in 'Sprach'.

I guess my favourite bit of Nietzsche is from 'On Truth And Falsity In Their Ultramoral Sense':

In some remote corner of the universe, poured out and glittering in innumerable solar systems, there once was a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. That was the highest and most mendacious minute of "world history" — yet only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra.....