The Case of Wagner: Complete Works, Volume 8Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
The Case of Wagner: Complete Works, Volume 8
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883
The denial of life is no longer an easy matter: a man may become a
hermit or a monk--and what is thereby denied! This conception has now
become deeper: it is above all a discerning denial, a denial based upon
the will to be just; not an indiscriminate and wholesale denial.
190
The seer must be affectionate, otherwise men will have no confidence in
him: Cassandra.
191
The man who to-day wishes to be good and saintly has a more difficult
task than formerly: in order to be "good," he must not be so
unjust to knowledge as earlier saints were. He would have to be a
knowledge-saint: a man who would link love with knowledge, and who
would have nothing to do with gods or demigods or "Providence," as the
Indian saints likewise had nothing to do with them. He should also be
healthy, and should keep himself so, otherwise he would necessarily
become distrustful of himself. And perhaps he would not bear the
slightest resemblance to the ascetic saint, but would be much more like
a man of the world.
192
The better the state is organised, the duller will humanity be.
To make the individual uncomfortable is my task!
The great pleasure experienced by the man who liberates himself by
fighting.
Spiritual heights have had their age in history; inherited energy
belongs to them. In the ideal state all would be over with them.
193
The highest judgment on life only arising from the highest energy of
life. The mind must be removed as far as possible from exhaustion.
In the centre of the world-history judgment will be the most accurate;
for it was there that the greatest geniuses existed.
The breeding of the genius as the only man who can truly value and deny
life.
Save your genius! shall be shouted unto the people: set him free! Do
all you can to unshackle him.
The feeble and poor in spirit must not be allowed to judge life.
194
_I dream of a combination of men who shall make no concessions, who
shall show no consideration, and who shall be willing to be called
"destroyers": they apply the standard of their criticism to everything
and sacrifice themselves to truth. The bad and the false shall be
brought to light! We will not build prematurely we do not know, indeed,
whether we shall ever be able to build, or if it would not be better
not to build at all There are lazy pessimists and resigned ones in this
world--and it is to their number that we refuse to belong!_
FINIS.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Wagner, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account