more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
This beauty and sublimity of nature, before which every human being seems small, was first imposed on nature by us.
Gist of Idea
The sublimity of nature which dwarfs us was a human creation
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 12[38])
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Joyful Science, and 1881-82 fragments (v 6)', ed/tr. Del Caro,Adrian [Stanford 2023], p.428
A Reaction
I was struck when I was 10 with how indifferent to a landscape I was, when my mother told me it was 'beautiful'. Five years later I saw it differently. I assume nature is not intrinsically sublime. Dwarfed by our own concept is a bit odd.
| 22046 | The mathematical sublime is immeasurable greatness; the dynamical sublime is overpowering [Kant, by Pinkard] |
| 21458 | The sublime is a moral experience [Kant, by Gardner] |
| 21928 | The Sublime fights for will-less knowing, when faced with a beautiful threat to humanity [Schopenhauer, by Lewis,PB] |
| 24087 | People who miss beauty seek the sublime, where even the ugly shows its 'beauty' [Nietzsche] |
| 24091 | The sublimity of nature which dwarfs us was a human creation [Nietzsche] |
| 20430 | In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry] |
| 23923 | Visual form can create a sublime mental state [Bell,C] |
| 23758 | Beauty is an attractive mystery, leaving nothing to be desired [Weil] |
| 23070 | We morally dissolve if we spend time with excessive beauty [Cioran] |
| 20386 | The sublime is negative in awareness of insignificance, and positive in showing understanding [Davies,S] |
| 24175 | Accounts of sublimity differ over whether we learn something good about ourselves [Cochrane] |