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Full Idea
The doctrine of being, of things, of all sorts of fixed unities is a hundred times easier than the doctrine of becoming, of development.
Gist of Idea
The nature of being, of things, is much easier to understand than is becoming
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §238)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.291
A Reaction
I don't know if he intended it, but this is a fierce shaft hurled at Aristotle, who gives a wonderful essentialist account of the nature of things, but can offer nothing more on becoming than the doctrine of potentiality and actuality.
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| 5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 22076 | Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling] |
| 7079 | Nietzsche resists nihilism through new values, for a world of becoming, without worship [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
| 20360 | We Germans value becoming and development more highly than mere being of what 'is' [Nietzsche] |
| 20359 | The nature of being, of things, is much easier to understand than is becoming [Nietzsche] |
| 21846 | Bergson was a rallying point, because he emphasised becomings and multiplicities [Bergson, by Deleuze] |
| 21899 | There is no being beyond becoming [Deleuze] |