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4517 | Egoism is inescapable, and when it grows weak, the power of love also grows weak [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: There cannot be anything other than egoism; in men whose ego is weak and thin the power of great love also grows weak. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §362) | |
A reaction: We have captured this now in the popular psychological notion of 'low self-esteem', which blights a persons behaviour. It runs counter to the Christian ideal of self-effacing altruism. |
4519 | The ego is only a fiction, and doesn't exist at all [Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: The 'subject' is only a fiction: the ego of which one speaks when one censures egoism does not exist at all. | |
From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §370) | |
A reaction: This is the true Nietzsche, the nihilistic relativist. On optimistic days he thought some people had quivering dynamic egoes, to which they apparently owe duties, as one might to a great talent with which one was born. |