Read some Nietzsche in my spare time, always curious what’s on his mind, what is he thinking? What makes him like that? Is all comes from asceticism? I believe no modern philosopher has been more completely misquoted and misrepresented. His utterance ‘God is dead’. His insistence that the meaning of life is to be found in purely human terms, and his doctrine of the superman and the will to power were all later seized upon and unrecognizably twisted by, among others, Nazi intellectuals.
Nietzsche loathed mediocrity; his chief purpose in writing was to restore the quality of any individual’s life. His ideas are often harsh and uncompromising, but rarely in negative intent, I guess....
Some of his writing in Thus Spoke Zarathustra - Prologue:
"Behold, I bring you the Superman! The Superman is the meaning of the earth.
Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth! I beg of you my brothers, remain true to the earth, and believe not those who speak to you of otherworldly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not. Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!
"Once blasphemy against God was the greatest blasphemy; but God died, and those blasphemers died along with him. Now to blaspheme against the earth is the greatest sin, and to rank love for the Unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth!
"Once the soul looked contemptuously upon the body, and then that contempt was the supreme thing: - the soul wished the body lean, monstrous, and famished. Thus it thought to escape from the body and the earth. But that soul was itself lean, monstrous, and famished; and cruelty was the delight of this soul! So my brothers, tell me: What does your body say about your soul? Is not your soul poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency?
"In truth, man is a polluted river. One must be a sea to receive a polluted river without becoming defiled. I bring you the Superman! He is that sea; in him your great contempt can be submerged.
"What is the greatest thing you can experience? It is the hour of your greatest contempt. The hour in which even your happiness becomes loathsome to you, and so also your reason and virtue.
"The hour when you say:
'What good is my happiness? It is poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency. But my happiness should justify existence itself!'
'What good is my reason? Does it long for knowledge as the lion for his prey? It is poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency!'
'What good is my virtue? It has not yet driven me mad! How weary I am of my good and my evil! It is all poverty and filth and miserable self-complacency!'
'What good is my justice? I do not see that I am filled with fire and burning coals. But the just are filled with fire and burning coals!'
'What good is my pity? Is not pity the cross on which he is nailed who loves man? But my pity is no crucifixion!'
"Have you ever spoken like this? Have you ever cried like this? Ah! If only I had heard you cry this way!
"It is not your sin - it is your moderation that cries to heaven; your very sparingness in sin cries to heaven!
"Where is the lightning to lick you with its tongue? Where is the madness with which you should be cleansed?
"Behold, I bring you the Superman! He is that lightning, he is that madness!
And while Zarathustra was speaking in this way, someone in the crowd interrupted: "We've heard enough about the tightrope walker; now it's time to see him!" And while the crowd laughed at Zarathustra, the tightrope walker, believing that he had been given his cue, began his performance.
Zarathustra, however, looked at the people and wondered. Then he spoke thus:
Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman- a rope over an abyss.
A dangerous crossing, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous trembling and halting.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a down-going.
I love those that know not how to live except as down-goers, for they are the over-goers.
I love the great despisers, because they are the great adorers, and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek a reason beyond the stars for going down and being sacrifices, but sacrifice themselves to the earth, that the earth may become the Superman's.
I love him who lives in order to know, and seeks to know in order that the Superman may hereafter live. Thus he seeks his own down-going.
I love him who labors and invents, that he may build the house for the Superman, and prepare for him earth, animal, and plant: for thus he seeks his own down-going.
I love him who loves his virtue: for virtue is the will to down-going, and an arrow of longing.
I love him who reserves no share of spirit for himself, but wants to be wholly the spirit of his virtue: thus he walks as spirit over the bridge.
I love him who makes his virtue his inclination and destiny: thus, for the sake of his virtue, he is willing to live on, or live no more.
I love him who desires not too many virtues. One virtue is more of a virtue than two, because it is more of a knot for one's destiny to cling to.
I love him whose soul is lavish, who wants no thanks and does not give back: for he always gives, and desires not to keep for himself.
I love him who is ashamed when the dice fall in his favor, and who then asks: "Am I a cheat?"- for he wants to perish.
I love him who scatters golden words in advance of his deeds, and always does more than he promises: for he seeks his own down-going.
I love him who justifies the future ones, and redeems the past ones: for he is willing to perish through the present ones.
I love him who chastens his God, because he loves his God: for he must perish through the wrath of his God.
I love him whose soul is deep even in the wounding, and may perish through a small matter: thus he goes willingly over the bridge.
I love him whose soul is so overfull that he forgets himself, and all things are in him: thus all things become his down-going.
I love him who is of a free spirit and a free heart: thus is his head only the bowels of his heart; his heart, however, causes his down-going.
I love all who are like heavy drops falling one by one out of the dark cloud that lowers over man: they herald the coming of the lightning, and perish as heralds.
Lo, I am a herald of the lightning, and a heavy drop out of the cloud: the lightning, however, is Superman! "
