Saturday, August 17, 2013

Living—is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature?

--- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Part One, On the prejudices of the philosophers, section 9, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics), 2000, transl. William Kaufman, p. 205

Quote:
“According to nature” you want to live? O you noble Stoics, what deceptive words these are! Imagine a being like nature, wasteful beyond measure, indifferent beyond measure, without purposes and consideration, without mercy and justice, fertile and desolate and uncertain at the same time; imagine indifference it self as a power—how could you live according to this indifference? Living—is that not precisely wanting to be other than this nature? Is not living—estimating, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And supposing your imperative “live according to nature” meant at bottom as much as “live according to life”—how could you not do that? Why make a principle of what you yourselves are and must be?