posted October 05, 2009 03:43 PM         

There is thinking; consequently there is that which thinks – that is what Descartes’ argument comes to. Yet this means positing our faith in the concept of substance as "a priori true." When there is thinking, something must be there which thinks -- that is merely a formulation of our grammatical habit, which posits a doer for what is done...

The will to power manifests itself
(a) among the supressed, among slaves of all kinds, as a will to "freedom: : merely to get away appears as the goal... ;
(b) among a stronger type which is growing up to reach for power, as a will to overpower; if unsuccessful at first, it may then limit itself to a will to "justice", that is, to equal rights with the ruling type;
(c) among the strongest, richest, most independent, and most courageous as "love of humanity". of the "people", of the Gospel, of truth, of God; as pity, "self-sacrifice", etc. ...

Hatred of mediocrity is unworthy of a philosopher; it is almost a question mark against his "right to philosophy". Just because he is the exception, he must protect the rule, and he must encourage self-confidence in all the mediocre.

Type of my disciples. To those human beings in whom I have a stake I wish suffering, being forsaken, maltreatment, humiliation, -- I wish that that profound self-contempt, the torture of mistrust of oneself, and the misery of him who is overcome, not remain unknown to them: I have no pity for them because I wish them the only think which can prove today whether one has worth or not -- that one holds out.

posted October 05, 2009 04:00 PM         

That the value of an act should depend on what preceded it in consciousness -- how false that is! And yet morality has been measured that way, even criminality.
The value of an act must be measured by its consequences, the utilitarians say: measuring it by its origin implies an impossibility, namely, knowing the origin.
But does one know the consequences? Perhaps as far as five steps. Who could say what an act stimulates, excites, provokes against itself? As a stimulus? Perhaps as the ignition spark for an explosive? The utilitarians are naive. And in the end we would first have to know what is useful: here too their vision extends for only five steps. They have no conception of any great economy which does not know how to dispense with evil. ...

Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts", I shoudl say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations. ...

One recognizes the superiority of the Greek man, of the man of the Renaissance -- but one would like to have it without its causes and conditions.

...Dionysus versus "the Crucified One": there you have the contrast. It is not martyrdom that constitutes the difference -- only here it has two different senses. ... The tragic man affirms even the harshest suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich, and deifying for this; the Christian negates even the happiest life on earth: he is sufficently weak, poor, and disinherited to suffer from life in any form. The God on the cross is a curse on life, a pointer to seek redemption from it; Dionysus cut to pieces is a promise of life: it is eternally reborn and comes back from destruction.