The Twilight of the Idols was written towards the end of the summer of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so few indeed that, in Ecce Homo (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the 3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: “ Idle Hours of a Psychologist ”; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present title, while

To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artistic feat. And yet, what could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds which exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, is the proof of power.—A transvaluation of all values, —this note of interrogation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow even upon him who affixes it,—is a task of such fatal import, that he who undertakes i

1 Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then a—vice? 2 Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he really knows. 3 Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be both—a philosopher. 4 “All truth is simple.”—Is not this a double lie? 5 Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.—Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge. 6 A man recovers best from his exceptional natu

1 In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their judgment of life: it is no good. At all times and places the same words have been on their lips,—words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates’ dying words were:—“To live—means to be ill a long while: I owe a cock to the god Æsculapius.” Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does that prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (—oh, it has been said, and loudl

1 You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers? ... For instance their lack of the historical sense, their hatred even of the idea of Becoming, their Egyptianism. They imagine that they do honour to a thing by divorcing it from history sub specie æterni,— when they make a mummy of it. All the ideas that philosophers have treated for thousands of years, have been mummied concepts; nothing real has ever come out of their hands alive. These idolaters of concepts merely kill and stuff things

1 There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,—and there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with the spirit, when they “spiritualise” themselves. Formerly, owing to the stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers were unanimous on this point, “ il faut tuer les passions. ” The most famous formula

1 The error of the confusion of cause and effect.— There is no more dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of “Religion” and “Morality.” Every postulate formulated by religion and morality contains it. Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the promoters o

1 You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,—that they should have the illusion of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a point of view which I was the first to formulate: that there are no such things as moral facts. Moral judgment has this in common with the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more strictly speaking, a misi

1 Among Germans at the present day it does not suffice to have intellect; one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it. Maybe I know the Germans, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. Modern Germany represents such an enormous store of inherited and acquired capacity, that for some time it might spend this accumulated treasure even with some prodigality. It is no superior culture that has ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any means delicate

1 My Impossible People. —Seneca, or the toreador of virtue—-Rousseau, or the return to nature, in impuris naturalibus. —Schiller, or the Moral-Trumpeter of Sackingen.—Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry in tombs.—Kant, or cant as an intelligible character.—Victor Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of nonsense.—Liszt, or the school of racing—after women.—George Sand, or lactea ubertas, in plain English: the cow with plenty of beautiful milk.—Michelet, or enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves.—Carlyl

1 In conclusion I will just say a word concerning that world to which I have sought new means of access, to which I may perhaps have found a new passage—the ancient world. My taste, which is perhaps the reverse of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say Yea, it would prefer to say Nay, and better still nothing whatever.... This is true of whole cultures; it is true of books,—it is also true of places and of landscapes

“Why so hard!”—said the diamond once unto the charcoal; “are we then not next of kin?” “Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye not—my brothers? “Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from your eyes? “And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one day to conquer with me? “And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope one day t

An Attempted Criticism of Christianity This book belongs to the very few. Maybe not one of them is yet alive; unless he be of those who understand my Zarathustra. How can I confound myself with those who to-day already find a hearing?—Only the day after to-morrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously. I am only too well aware of the conditions under which a man understands me, and then necessarily understands. He must be intellectually upright to the point of hardness, in order even to endur

The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever wrote on the subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they must have been composed towards the autumn of the year 1881. I have already pointed out elsewhere ( Will to Power, vol. ii., Translator’s Preface) how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the inspiration which had led to his chief