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Full Idea
The type of the ambitious man who thirsts after honour is supposed to be Napoleon, or Caesar, or Alexander! As if these were not precisely the great despisers of honour!
Gist of Idea
The supposed great lovers of honour (Alexander etc) were actually great despisers of honour
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §751)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'The Will to Power', ed/tr. Kaufmann,W /Hollingdate,R [Vintage 1968], p.397
A Reaction
I'm not sure how Nietzsche knows this, but it sounds right. Great success comes from total focus on the end, not on incidental rewards.
| 7811 | Sophoclean heroes die terrible deaths when they oppose the new Athenian values [Sophocles, by Grayling] |
| 8235 | Should a coward who ran fifty paces from a battle laugh at another who ran a hundred? [Mengzi (Mencius)] |
| 24 | Honour depends too much on the person who awards it [Aristotle] |
| 4119 | If you aim at honour, you make yourself dependent on the people to whom you wish to be superior [Aristotle, by Williams,B] |
| 5233 | Honour is clearly the greatest external good [Aristotle] |
| 23912 | Honour depends on what it is for, and whether it is bestowed by worthy people [Aristotle] |
| 20844 | Honour is just, courageous, orderly or knowledgeable. It is praiseworthy, or functions well [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 23673 | Every worthy man has a principle of honour, and knows what is honourable [Reid] |
| 4557 | The supposed great lovers of honour (Alexander etc) were actually great despisers of honour [Nietzsche] |
| 4021 | Willingness to risk life was the constitutive quality of the man of honour [Taylor,C] |
| 7809 | In an honour code shame is the supreme punishment, and revenge is a duty [Grayling] |