Man Alone with Himself

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Man Alone with Himself
Friedrich Nietzsche - Author £4.99 Book: Paperback \| 111 x 181mm \| 96 pages \| ISBN 9780141036687 \| 07 Aug 2008 \| Penguin

Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary thinkers in Western philosophy. Here he sets out his subversive views in a series of aphorisms on subjects ranging from art to arrogance, boredom to passion, science to vanity, rejecting conventional notions of morality to celebrate the individual’s ‘will to power’.

Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves – and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives – and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

1 Man Alone with Himself

1. Enemies of truth. Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

2. Topsy-turvy world. We criticize a thinker more sharply when he proposes a tenet that is disagreeable to us; and yet it would be more reasonable to do this when we find his tenet agreeable.

3. A person of character. It is much more common for a person to appear to have character because he always acts in accord with his temperament, rather than because he always acts in accord with his principles.

4. The one necessary thing. A person must have one or the other: either a disposition which is easygoing by nature, or else a disposition eased by art and knowledge.

5. Passion for things. He who directs his passion to things (the sciences, the national good, cultural interests, the arts) takes much of the fire out of his passion for people (even when they represent those things, as statesmen, philosophers, and artists represent their creations).

6.Calm in action. As a waterfall becomes slower and more floating as it plunges, so the great man of action will act with greater calm than could be expected from his violent desire before the deed.