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Full Idea
Brave and creative men never consider pleasure and pain as ultimate values - they are epiphenomena: one must desire both if one is to achieve anything.
Gist of Idea
Pleasure and pain are mere epiphenomena, and achievement requires that one desire both
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §579)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.311
A Reaction
I am struggling with the notion that I must desire pain if I am ambitious, but to label these feeling 'epiphenomena' is challenging and plausible. I certainly deny that they have intrinsic value, which is a matter of judgement, not feeling.
| 385 | Some of the pleasures and pains we feel are false [Plato] |
| 4376 | Pleasure and pain are perceptions of things as good or bad [Aristotle] |
| 4374 | For Aristotle, pleasure is the perception of particulars as valuable [Achtenberg on Aristotle] |
| 1835 | True pleasure is not debauchery, but freedom from physical and mental pain [Epicurus] |
| 4847 | Pleasure is a passive state in which the mind increases in perfection [Spinoza] |
| 12962 | Pleasure is a sense of perfection [Leibniz] |
| 5049 | Intelligent pleasure is the perception of beauty, order and perfection [Leibniz] |
| 7197 | Pleasure needs dissatisfaction, boundaries and resistances [Nietzsche] |
| 4550 | Pleasure and pain are mere epiphenomena, and achievement requires that one desire both [Nietzsche] |
| 9230 | People want to fulfill their desires, but also for their desires to be sustained [Frankfurt] |