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Single Idea 23214

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism ]

Full Idea

In the hands of the strongest every kind of pessimism and nihilism becomes only one more hammer and tool with which one mounts a new pair of wings on oneself.

Gist of Idea

For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings!

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 2[101])

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Fragments from 1885-86 (v 16)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2020], p.352

A Reaction

Not sure how this works. Why is great strength needed? Strength implies forceful overcoming. The wings come from rejecting nihilism, but why does that need strength? Aren't there people with wings who never even thought of nihilism?

The 32 ideas from 'Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86'

23208 Caesar and Napoleon point to the future, when they pursue their task regardless of human sacrifice [Nietzsche]
23209 Each of our personal drives has its own perspective [Nietzsche]
23210 That all events are necessary does not mean they are compelled [Nietzsche]
23211 Events are just interpretations of groups of appearances [Nietzsche]
23212 A text has many interpretations, but no 'correct' one [Nietzsche]
23213 The greatest drive of life is to discharge strength, rather than preservation [Nietzsche]
23214 For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche]
23183 Different abilities are needed for living in an incomplete and undogmatic system [Nietzsche]
23184 The mind is a simplifying apparatus [Nietzsche]
23186 Numbers enable us to manage the world - to the limits of counting [Nietzsche]
23187 Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche]
23188 Bad writers use shapeless floating splotches of concepts [Nietzsche]
23189 Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche]
23190 Consciousness is our awareness of our own mental life [Nietzsche]
23191 Minds have an excluding drive to scare things off, and a selecting one to filter facts [Nietzsche]
23192 Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche]
23193 Napoleon was very focused, and rightly ignored compassion [Nietzsche]
23194 People feel united as a nation by one language, but then want a common ancestry and history [Nietzsche]
23195 Laws of nature are actually formulas of power relations [Nietzsche]
23197 Memory is essential, and is only possible by means of abbreviation signs [Nietzsche]
23196 Logic is a fiction, which invents the view that one thought causes another [Nietzsche]
23185 In chemistry every substance pushes, and thus creates new substances [Nietzsche]
23198 Aesthetics can be more basic than morality, in our pleasure in certain patterns of experience [Nietzsche]
23199 What is the search for truth if it isn't moral? [Nietzsche]
23200 The controlling morality of aristocracy is the desire to resemble their ancestors [Nietzsche]
23201 The 'I' does not think; it is a construction of thinking, like other useful abstractions [Nietzsche]
23202 Like all philosophers, I love truth [Nietzsche]
23203 The great question is approaching, of how to govern the earth as a whole [Nietzsche]
23204 To be someone you need property, and wanting more is healthy [Nietzsche]
23205 Thought starts as ambiguity, in need of interpretation and narrowing [Nietzsche]
23206 Schematic minds think thoughts are truer if they slot into a scheme [Nietzsche]
23207 Appearance is the sole reality of things, to which all predicates refer [Nietzsche]