Quotes from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“Without forgetting it is quite impossible to live at all.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“Happiness: being able to forget or, to express in a more learned fashion.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“Human existence basically is──a never to be completed imperfect tense.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“One who cannot leave himself behind on the threshold of the moment and forget the past, who cannot stand on a single point, like a goddess of victory, without fear or giddiness, will never know what happiness is; and, worse still, will never do anything that makes others happy.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The beast lives unhistorically; for it 'goes into' the present, like a number, without leaving any curious remainder.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The crowd of influences streaming on the young soul is so great, the clods of barbarism and violence flung at him so strange and overwhelming, that an assumed stupidity is his only refuge.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“There is something the child sees that he does not see; something the child hears that he does not hear; and this something is the most important thing of all. Because he does not understand it, his understanding is more childish than the child's and more simple than simplicity itself; in spite of the many clever wrinkles on his parchment face, and the masterly play of his fingers in unravelling the knots.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“What a school of politeness is such a contemplation of the past! To take everything objectively, to be angry at nothing, to love nothing, to understand everything-- makes one gentle and pliable.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“... a thing can only live through a pious illusion.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The great works are produced in such an ecstasy of love that they must always be unworthy of it, however great their worth otherwise.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The power of gradually losing all feeling of strangeness or astonishment, and finally being pleased at anything, is called the historical sense or historical culture.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“We suffer from the malady of words, and have no trust in any feeling that is not stamped with its special word.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“And that discovery would betray the closely guarded secret of modern culture to the laughter of the world. For we moderns have nothing of our own. We only become worth notice by filling ourselves to overflowing with foreign customs, arts, philosophies, religions and sciences: we are wandering encyclopaedias, as an ancient Greek who had strayed into our time would probably call us. But the only value of an encyclopaedia lies in the inside, in the contents, not in what is written outside, in the binding or the wrapper. And so the whole of modern culture is essentially internal; the bookbinder prints something like this on the cover: “Manual of internal culture for external barbarians.” The opposition of inner and outer makes the outer side still more barbarous, as it would naturally be, when the outward growth of a rude people merely developed its primitive inner needs. For what means has nature of repressing too great a luxuriance from without? Only one,—to be affected by it as little as possible, to set it aside and stamp it out at the first opportunity. And so we have the custom of no longer taking real things seriously, we get the feeble personality on which the real and the permanent make so little impression. Men become at last more careless and accommodating in external matters, and the [Pg 34] considerable cleft between substance and form is widened; until they have no longer any feeling for barbarism, if only their memories be kept continually titillated, and there flow a constant stream of new things to be known, that can be neatly packed up in the cupboards of their memory.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The visible action is not the self-manifestation of the inward life, but only a weak and crude attempt of a single thread to make a show of representing the whole.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“The progress of science has been amazingly rapid in the last decade; but consider the savants, those exhausted hens. They are certainly not “harmonious” natures: they can merely cackle more than before, because they lay eggs oftener: but the eggs are always smaller, [Pg 64] though their books are bigger. The natural result of it all is the favourite “popularising” of science (or rather its feminising and infantising), the villainous habit of cutting the cloth of science to fit the figure of the “general public.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“As if it were the task of every time to be just to everything before it! Ages and generations have never the right to be the judges of all previous ages and generations: only to the rarest men in them can that difficult mission fall. Who compels you to judge? If it is your wish—you must prove first that you are capable of justice. As judges, you must stand higher than that which is to be judged: as it is, you have only come later. The guests that come last to the table should rightly take the last places: and will you take the first? Then do some great and mighty deed: the place may be prepared for you then, even though you do come last.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“A thing can only live through a pious illusion.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“We stop too often at knowing the good without doing it, because we also know the better but cannot do it.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

“Человек же, напротив, должен всячески упираться против громадной, все увеличивающейся тяжести прошлого; последняя или пригибает его вниз, или отклоняет его в сторону, она затрудняет его движение, как невидимая и темная ноша, от которой он для виду готов иногда отречься, как это он слишком охотно и делает в обществе равных себе, чтобы возбудить в них зависть. Поэтому-то”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

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“Rolling across the floor, she reached Vigor. The monsignor crouched near the top of the firepit tunnel. She handed him her gun. “Down,” she ordered. “Shoot anybody that comes into view.” “What about you?” “No, don’t shoot me.” “I mean where are you going?”
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'You write, I believe?' he said with complete lack of interest.

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'I always feel that I could write superbly if I tried' remarked the Turk.

'Really?' said Mother. 'Yes, well, it's a gift I suppose, like so many things.'

'He swims well' remarked Margo, 'and he goes out terribly far'

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“can. “New York City, huh?” “Yup.” She rolled up her sleeves and dipped down into the water. And that was when I noticed the scar. “Jeez. What’s that?” It started just inside her left elbow and ran down to the wrist like a long pink twisted worm. She saw where I was looking. “Accident,” she said. “We were in a car.” Then she looked back into the water where you could see her reflection shimmering. “Jeez.” But then she didn’t seem to want to talk much after that. “Got any more of ’em?” I don’t know why scars are always so fascinating to boys, but they are, it’s a fact of life, and I just couldn’t help it. I couldn’t shut up about it yet. Even though I knew she wanted me to, even though”
― Jack Ketchum, quote from The Girl Next Door

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