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Full Idea
Let us think this thought in its most terrible form: existence as it is, without meaning or goal, but inevitably recurring, without any finale into nothingness: 'eternal recurrence'.
Gist of Idea
Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought
Source
Friedrich Nietzsche (Writings from Late Notebooks [1887], 05[71].6)
Book Ref
Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Writings from the Late Notebooks', ed/tr. Bittner,Rüdiger [CUP 2003], p.118
A Reaction
I take this in a positive spirit - that if you wish to live well you should create a life which you could endure and enjoy, even if it recurred eternally. But that might be rather conservative rather than exciting, if we always avoided giving offence.
| 22093 | Life is a repetition when what has been now becomes [Kierkegaard] |
| 20137 | The great person engages wholly with life, and is happy to endlessly relive the life they created [Nietzsche] |
| 20144 | Eternal recurrence is the highest attainable affirmation [Nietzsche] |
| 24088 | See our present lives as eternal! Religions see it as fleeting, and aim at some different life [Nietzsche] |
| 24119 | The eternal return of wastefulness is a terrible thought [Nietzsche] |
| 24136 | Who can endure the thought of eternal recurrence? [Nietzsche] |
| 24154 | If you want one experience repeated, you must want all of them [Nietzsche] |
| 2936 | Imagine if before each of your actions you had to accept repeating the action over and over again [Nietzsche] |
| 6842 | Nietzsche says facing up to the eternal return of meaninglessness is the response to nihilism [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
| 7172 | Existence without meaning or goal or end, eternally recurring, is a terrible thought [Nietzsche] |
| 20124 | Reliving life countless times - this gives the value back to life which religion took away [Nietzsche] |