Single Idea 18286

[catalogued under 23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism]

Full Idea

What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of the great contempt. The hour in which even your happiness grows loathsome to you, and your reason and your virtue also.

Gist of Idea

The greatest experience possible is contempt for your own happiness, reason and virtue

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spake Zarathustra [1884], 1.01)

Book Reference

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', ed/tr. Hollingdale,R.J. [Penguin 1969], p.42


A Reaction

This would be a transient state for Nietzsche, in which you realise the hollowness of those traditional ideas, and begin to seek something else.