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20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious. | |
From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038 | |
A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism. |
23214 | For the strongest people, nihilism gives you wings! [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: In the hands of the strongest every kind of pessimism and nihilism becomes only one more hammer and tool with which one mounts a new pair of wings on oneself. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1885-86 [1886], 2[101]) | |
A reaction: Not sure how this works. Why is great strength needed? Strength implies forceful overcoming. The wings come from rejecting nihilism, but why does that need strength? Aren't there people with wings who never even thought of nihilism? |