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Full Idea
Not "return to nature", for there has never yet been a natural humanity.
Gist of Idea
Not "return to nature", for there has never yet been a natural humanity
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §120)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.73
A Reaction
I like that. The notion of dividing humanity into natural and unnatural makes me uneasy (and certainly isn't PC), and yet us all having to be 'natural' seems a conservative straight-jacket.
| 6013 | Panaetius said we should live according to our natural starting-points [Panaetius, by Asmis] |
| 13318 | Nature doesn't give us virtue; we must unremittingly pursue it, as a training and an art [Seneca] |
| 13324 | Living contrary to nature is like rowing against the stream [Seneca] |
| 3069 | The art of life is more like the wrestler's than the dancer's [Aurelius] |
| 4856 | To live according to reason is to live according to the laws of human nature [Spinoza] |
| 4493 | Be natural! But how, if one happens to be "unnatural"? [Nietzsche] |
| 4494 | Not "return to nature", for there has never yet been a natural humanity [Nietzsche] |
| 4498 | 'Love your enemy' is unnatural, for the natural law says 'love your neighbour and hate your enemy' [Nietzsche] |