display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
15 ideas
| 20253 | Modern wars arise from the study of history [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The great wars of our day are the effects of the study of history. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 180) | |
| A reaction: The Prussians reacted to Napoleon. The Nazis reacted to Versailles. But now the study of history reveals to us dreadful wars based on simplistic accounts of history. Be wise about history, not ignorant of it. |
| 14836 | People will enthusiastically pursue an unwanted war, once sacrifices have been made [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: All things for which we have made sacrifices are in the right. This explains why, just as soon as sacrifices are made, people continue with enthusiasm a war that was begun against their wishes. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 229) |
| 18320 | To renounce war is to renounce the grand life [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One has renounced grand life when one renounces war. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche was a medical orderly in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, so he had seen it at first hand. I think the machine gun and the heavy bomber would have changed his attitude to warfare. He sounds a bit silly now. Nostalgia for the Iliad. |
| 24100 | If you don't want war, remove your borders; but you set up borders because you want war [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: You are waging war? You fear your neighbour? So remove the border markers: then you will have no more neighbours. But you want war: and that's why you set up the border markers in the first place. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 5[1]145) | |
| A reaction: The only reason to demarcate some territory is to keep other people out of it, which is a first act of gentle hostility. The European Union is trying to gradually dismantle the borders. Nietzsche had a creepy liking for war. |
| 14845 | Don't crush girls with dull Gymnasium education, the way we have crushed boys! [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For heaven's sake, do not pass our Gymnasium education on to girls too! For it often turns witty, inquisitive, fiery youths - into copies of their teachers! | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 409) |
| 14848 | Education in large states is mediocre, like cooking in large kitchens [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The educational system in large states will always be mediocre at best, for the same reason that the cooking in large kitchens is at best mediocre. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 467) | |
| A reaction: I wish he had said what that 'same reason' is. Something to do with too many cooks, I suppose. Nothing seems harder than reaching a wide concensus on how the young should be educated. Like interior design by a committee. |
| 14886 | Education is contrary to human nature [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Education runs contrary to the nature of a human being. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 30 [06]) | |
| A reaction: Tell me about it! |
| 14839 | Interest in education gains strength when we lose interest in God [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Interest in education will gain great strength only at the moment when belief in a God and his loving care is given up. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 242) | |
| A reaction: This remark may well sum up the motivation of my entire life. What effect would it have had if I had read it when I was twenty? |
| 14834 | Teachers only gather knowledge for their pupils, and can't be serious about themselves [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: A teacher is incapable of doing anything of his own for his own good. He always thinks of the good of his pupils, and all new knowledge gladdens him only to the extent that he can teach it. He is a thoroughfare for learning, and has lost seriousness. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Human, All Too Human [1878], 200) | |
| A reaction: Oh dear. I look in the mirror. Do I only delight in finding all these quotations so that I can stick them in the database and pass them on to someone else? Are they actually impingeing on my life? Could I meet an idea that made me abandon this project? |
| 2908 | There is a need for educators who are themselves educated [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: There is a need for educators who are themselves educated. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 7.5) |
| 2889 | One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Ecce Homo [1889], Fore) |
| 14883 | We should evaluate the past morally [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: For the past I desire above all a moral evaluation. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 [1873], 29 [096]) | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of a contradiction with Idea 14819, of only a few years later. He was always interested in a historical approach to morality, but I'm not sure if his ethics gives a decent basis for moral assessments of remote historical eras. |
| 20261 | History does not concern what really happened, but supposed events, which have all the influence [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The writer of history deals not with what really happened but merely with supposed events, for only the latter have had an effect. ...All historians speak of things that have never existed except in imagination. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 307) | |
| A reaction: This seems blatantly true, and is most obvious in the case of forged documents which have been hugely influential. Erroneous conspiracy theories are another example. (Note: only scorn conspiracy theories if you think conspiracies never happen!). |
| 24095 | Our growth is too subtle to perceive, and long events are too slow for us to grasp [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The slowness of the events in the history of human beings is not suited to the human sense of time - and the subtlety and smallness of all growth defies human vision. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 15[41]) | |
| A reaction: The only way we can study history is by 'periods'. It is as if English history has its slate wiped clean in 1066, 1485, 1603 and 1689. All historians know that the reality of it all is totally beyond our grasp. |
| 24128 | After history following God, or a people, or an idea, we now see it in terms of animals [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Earlier we sought God's intentions in history: then an unconscious purposefulness, in a people or an idea. Only recently are we considering the history of animals, and the first insight is that no plan has so far existed. Coincidences have been dominant. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[127]) | |
| A reaction: Not a Whig historian then! Presumably Hegel is his main target. In 2024 there is a definite feeling that western democracies are regressing. |