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For a critique of pessimism. The docrtine of 'preponderance of pain over pleasure' and its reverse (hedonism) are already indications of nihilism, are already nihilistic, for in both cases it is assumed that in the end, nothing is of any significance other than the phenomenon of pleasure and pain. Only a man who no longer dares to desire anything, to intend anything, or even to attach significance to anything speaks in this way - for every healthy man, the value of life is certainly not measured by such trifles. There might very well be a preponderance of pain, and a mighty will capable of affirming life just the same; there might even be need of this preponderance.

Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power)

Formerly it was said of every kind of morality, 'by their fruits ye shall know them'; I say of every kind of morality that it is a fruit by which I recognize the soil whence it sprang.

Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power)

As now the trees must be before the fruits, and the fruits do not make the trees good or bad, but the trees make the fruits, so too the man must be good or bad in person, before he does good or bad works. And his works do not make him good or bad, but he does good or bad works. We see the same in all handiwork: a good or bad house does not make a good or bad carpenter, but a good or bad carpenter makes a good or bad house; no work makes a master according as the work is, but as the master is, so is his work

Martin Luther (On the Freedom of a Christian)

Everything comes from the infinitesimal and everything returns to it; nothing in the sphere of the finite and complex — a surprising fact which nobody is surprised at — appears suddenly, nor dies away

Gabriel Tarde (Monadology and Sociology)

It is the case that an immense sphere of light spread through space is due to the unique vibration, multiplied by contagion, of one central atom of ether, —that the entire population of a species originates from the prodigious multiplication of one unique first ovular cell, in a kind of generative radiation, —that the presence of the correct astronomical theory in millions of human brains is due to the multiplied repetition of an idea which appeared one day in a cerebral cell of Newton's brain.

Gabriel Tarde (Monadology and Sociology)

One does not take the description of how an idea originates for a definition, nor a statement of the mental and physical conditions under which a proposition comes to our consciousness for a proof, and confuse the fact that a proposition has been thought of with its truth! One must, as it appears, be reminded of the fact that a proposition just as little ceases to be true when I no longer think of it than the sun would disappear if I closed my eyes. Otherwise, we come down to this, that in order to prove the Pythagorean theorem it is necessary to think about the phosphorous content of our brains; and an astronomer would dread to reach his conclusions about long past times, so that he does not object to him: 'You calculate here that 2x2 = 4; but the idea of number has a development, a history! One can doubt whether by that time it was already so advanced. How do you know that in those past times this proposition already existed? Could not the beings living at that time have possessed the proposition that 2x2 = 5, from which the proposition that 2x2 = 4 had first developed by means of natural selection in the struggle for existence, which for its part is destined perhaps in the same way to be upgraded to 2x2 = 3?'

Gottlob Frege (Foundations of Arithmetic)

and Zarathustra said sadly: "Everything has become smaller! Everywhere I see lower gates: those who are of my kind probably still go through, but they must stoop. Oh, when shall I get back to my homeland, where I need no longer stoop- no longer stoop before those who are small?"

Friedrich Nietzsche (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)

Of what use, then, is the monumentalistic conception of the past, engagement with the classic and rare of earlier times, to the man of the present? He learns from it that the greatness that once existed was in any event once possible and may thus be possible again; he goes his way with more cheerful step, for the doubt which assailed him in weaker moments, whether he was not perhaps desiring the impossible, has now been banished. Supposing someone believed that it would require no more than a hundred men educated and actively working in a new spirit to do away with the bogus form of culture which has just now become the fashion in Germany, how greatly it would strengthen him to realize that the culture of the Renaissance was raised on the shoulders of just such a band of a hundred men.

Friedrich Nietzsche (Untimely Meditations)

In every animal being the will has acquired an intellect, and this intellect is the light by means of which it pursues its goals here. - Incidentally, fear of death might be due in part to the fact that the individual will is so reluctant to part from the intellect that has come to it in the course of nature, from its leader and guard, without which it knows it will be helpless and blind.

Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation Volume II)

The true essence of any animal form is an act of will lying outside of representation, and hence also outside its forms of space and time, an act of will that for just this reason knows no succession nor juxtaposition, but absolute unity. But now if our cerebral intuition grasps that animal form and if the scalpel even dissects its insides, then that which was originally foreign to this cognition and its laws is revealed to the light of cognition, but that which was foreign must now present itself in accord with the forms and laws of cognition. The original unity and indivisibility of this truly metaphysical being, now appears to be pulled asunder into a juxtaposition of parts and a succession of functions, which, however, present themselves as closely bound to one another through the strictest relation for their mutual assistance and support, as means and end coordinated. The understanding that apprehends in this way is filled with wonder at the profoundly conceived arrangement of parts and combination of functions because the understanding also assumes that the way it became aware of the original unity reestablishing itself out of plurality (which had first been brought about by the understanding's cognitive form) is the origin of this animal form. This is the sense of Kant's great theory that purposiveness is first brought to nature by the understanding, which then marvels at the miracle that it itself has first created. If I may be permitted to explain such a lofty subject through a trivial analogy, this is the same as if the understanding were astonished that when the single digits of any of the products of multiplication of 9 are added together, they again yield 9 or a number whose digits, when added together, make 9 - although the understanding itself has prepared this miracle in the decimal system.

Arthur Schopenhauer (On Will in Nature)

But for someone who studies to gain insight, books and studies are mere rungs of the ladder on which he climbs to the heights of cognition: as soon as a rung has raised him up a step, he leaves it where it is. By contrast, most people who study to fill their memories do not use the rungs of the ladder for climbing, but remove them and pack them up so they can be taken along, rejoicing in the growing weight of their burden. They always stay below, since they carry what should be carrying them. The truth that we are presenting here, that intuitive comprehension is the inner core of all cognition, is the basis of Helvetius' true and profound remark that the really distinctive and original basic insights of which a gifted individual is capable (and all his works, even those written much later, are the development, working through, and multiple application of these insights) - these insights begin to dry up when he is thirty-five or forty at most, and in fact are really the results of combinations from his earliest youth. This is because they are precisely not mere chains of abstract concepts, but are his very own intuitive grasp of the objective world and the essence of things. Now the fact that this needs to be completed by the aforementioned age rests on the fact that the greatest energy of mental activity is required for this quintessence of all cognition, for this impression before the fact of comprehension, and this energy is conditioned by the vigour and flexibility of the brain's fibres and through the strength with which the arterial blood streams into the brain: but this is at its strongest only as long as the arterial system has a decisive superiority over the venous system, which starts to decline in one's early thirties until the venous system finally has the advantage after the forty-second year. This is why the twenties and early thirties are for the intellect what May is for the trees: only now do the blooms appear that develop later into fruit. The intuitive world has made its impression and in so doing has provided the fundamental resources for all of the individual's subsequent thoughts. The individual can, through reflection, clarify what is comprehended; he can expand on his insights, verify his concepts and judgements, begin gaining mastery of the acquired material through endless combinations, and in fact his best works are usually only produced much later, just as the highest temperatures are only reached when the days begin to grow shorter: but new fundamental cognitions from the single, living source of intuition - this he cannot hope for.

Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation Volume II)

Time is thus the form that makes self-cognition possible for the individual will, which originally and in itself lacks cognition. Through time, its intrinsically simple and self-identical essence appears separated out over the course of a life. But precisely due to the original simplicity and self-identity of the thing presented in this way, its character always remains exactly the same; which is why a life history retains the same ground tones throughout, and in fact the many different events and scenes of a life are fundamentally like variations on one and the same theme.

Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Representation Volume II)

Protestantism has actually made the human being into a "secret police state". The spy and lookout, "conscience", monitors every movement of the mind, and every thought and action is a "matter of conscience", i.e, a police matter. The Protestant consists in this fragmentation of the human being into "natural desire" and "conscience" (inner populace and inner police.)

Max Stirner (The Unique and Its Property)

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bad judgement a priori