Basic Writings of Nietzsche

by Friedrich Nietzsche

One hundred years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains the most influential philosopher of the modern era. Basic Writings of Nietzsche gathers the complete texts of five of Nietzsche's most important works, from his first book to his last: The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, and Ecce Homo. Edited and translated by the great Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann, this volume also features seventy-five aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche's correspondence, and variants from drafts for Ecce Homo. It is a definitive guide to the full range of Nietzsche's thought.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, History, Modern, German Literature, Westerns

Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.

Reviews

[Caterina · Rating 5 out of 5]

2/10/2013 - "When you look into the abyss, the abyss looks into you" wrote Nietzsche. I thought I was spiritually strong enough to peer with impunity through the hole Nietzsche tore open in the veil of the abyss - that somehow the abyss would not notice me glancing into it, would leave me alone. Now, more than one year after completing this anthology (and Thus Spake Zarathustra) I understand that these books don't leave a serious reader unchanged. While on one level I approached them seriously, ready for the challenge, on another level I may have been playing chicken with the abyss, not fully considering the personal impact philosophy can have. If you really open your mind and let these ideas in, your old ideas will most likely find themselves overpowered. Once read, these books can't be unread. I don't regret reading them - but felt moved to add this warning to prospective readers. I greatly appreciated many of Nietzsche's ideas, but the whole of his philosophy left me in a kind of turmoil that I don't know how to resolve. It may be that Nietzsche himself was playing chicken with the abyss, and eventually fell in.

As you can see from my original reviews, below (which I'm not going to revise! - let then stand!) I really enjoyed reading these books. I respect Nietzsche intellectually and artistically, and like him a great deal - but I disagreed with him vehemently at times - particularly his position as an "immoralist." And I find Christ much more attractive than Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was so subtle, though, that it was never clear to me that he actually believed many of the things he said. Instead, I had the sense he wanted to be argued with, was inviting other intellectuals of his time to stand up to him - and, in that, may have been greatly disappointed. Now that I've belatedly "discovered" Dostoevsky, I would say Dostoevsky looked more far more deeply into the abyss than Nietzsche ever did - and although he clearly influenced Nietzsche, he also offered the strongest contemporary literary pushback - the anti-Nietzsche if you will.

1/12/2012 - Reading Nietzsche has been a delight and a challenge, inspiring and sometimes appalling. He intended to provoke in the extreme, to tear down the highest values and create new values in their place. If you are spiritually strong, like to argue with your reading material, and appreciate a supreme literary stylist whose work is full of humor and grace and finesse - you might appreciate Nietzsche. Sometimes while reading my imaginary self felt like a little boat floating on a dark, shoreless sea under the moon, about to be struck and perhaps incinerated by lightning, but my real self meanwhile was enjoying the sunshine and a bowl of seafood gumbo across a cafe table from this fascinatingly sane and insane man who caused me to examine my self and my life more deeply than I might have done otherwise.

This volume contains several of his books: The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, "Seventy-Five Aphorisms in Five Volumes" (selections from other works), and Ecce Homo, I posted a few comments below for TBOT, BG&E, OTGOM, and Ecce Homo as I finished them.

1/12/2012 - Finished Ecce Homo, his loosely autobiographical work and commentary on his life's work. EH contained some of his tenderest writing outside of Zarathustra - intimate peeks into his own life. It also offered explanations of his intentions and methods for most of his books, and a fuller explanation of his deliberately provocative term for himself, "the first immoralist." (Although, from his description of his lifestyle, it's not clear to me that he ever actually did anything much immoral.) These "saner" passages are interspersed with prophetic passages that seem to border on sheer insanity - except that they do contain at least a grain of truth regarding his future influence.

1/1/2012 - Finished On the Genealogy of Morals. Three finely crafted, stealthy attacks of essays - highly readable, formidable fighting words - although they require prior knowledge of his other books to be more fully understood. In the third essay - the climax - he proposes that what he calls the ascetic ideal - the basis, he contends, for all major religions - and for modern science as well - and even, surprisingly, for modern atheism -has been so dominantly powerful because it has never had any rival whatsoever - it has been the only game in town - and yet - he contends its harmfulness to life has outweighed its benefits. Here is his own apt description of the essays conceived as a work of music - from Ecce Homo:

"Every time a beginning that is calculated to mislead: cool, scientific, even ironic, deliberately foreground, deliberately holding off. Gradually more unrest; sporadic lightning; very disagreeable truths are heard grumbling in the distance -- until eventually a tempo feroce is attained in which everything rushes ahead in a tremendous tension. In the end, in the midst of perfectly gruesome detonations, a new truth becomes visible among thick clouds."

This description is in itself ironic as the climax of the third essay questions the value of, and perhaps the existence of, truth. Not for the fainthearted.

11/19/2011 - Finished Beyond Good & Evil. This is an extremely challenging book of difficult ideas, some attractive and some quite repulsive - brilliantly, subtly insightful, masterfully poetic, and still relevant for understanding the modern world. His writing is extremely compelling and always pushes me to new ways of thinking, even if in opposition to him. And it's fascinating (although also frightening in retrospect) to read, 150 years later, the works that were nearly unknown during his lifetime and yet became so influential, and so horrifically used and misused during the 20th century. Since this is an anthology of several of his books, I'm making a short post each time I complete one of the books.

10/16/2011 - Finished The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music! Nietzsche was an antagonist, a controversialist, an adversary - and at the same time a generator of liberating, life-changing insights that still shine in creative brilliance almost 150 years later. He was also one of the foremost poetic stylists of the German language, so unlike the work of many other philosophers, his books are a pleasure to read for a lover of poetry and language - even in translation. In this, his first book, as a young philologist he tore down the universal homage of Socrates and his Western myth-deprived heritage of optimistic rationality, prophesying with great prescience that this belief "that it can correct the world by knowledge and guide life by science and actually confine the individual to a limited sphere of solvable problems" was actually a degenerative illusion that relied on a slave class to prop it up, and was leading Western society into devastating destruction. He presented both science and religion ultimately as aesthetic phenomena, forms of myth-making to veil the fatal gaze into "what defies illumination." As the life-embracing alternative to the Socratic, he offers Dionysian wisdom, experienced by the aesthetically inclined soul in the arts of tragedy and music, where the veil of beauty cast by the Greek god of art, Apollo, is united with the power of the god Dionysus in whom "the spell of individuation is broken, and the way lies open to the Mothers of Being, to the innermost heart of things." Here is a marvelous and challenging quotation:

"... suddenly the desert of our exhausted culture...is changed when it is touched by Dionysian magic! A tempest seized everything that has outlived itself, everything that is decayed, broken, and withered, and, whirling, shrouds it in a cloud of red dust to carry it in the air like a vulture. Confused, our eyes look after what has disappeared, for what they see has been raised as from a depression into golden light, so full and green, so amply alive, immeasurable and full of yearning. Tragedy is seated amid this excess of life, suffering, and pleasure, in sublime ecstasy, listening to a distant melancholy song that tells of the Mothers of Being ..."

While I do not agree with many of Nietzsche's ideas, there is no doubt they have had a profound influence on me.

[Ashok · Rating 5 out of 5]

The main thing to emphasize is the convenience of this edition for students and scholars. It looks to me like one might have some issues with Kaufmann's translation, especially as regards "Beyond Good and Evil;" I prefer literal translations myself, and he seems to be on the mark with "The Birth of Tragedy."

What you get here is indispensable - if you're going to do serious work, or make a serious attempt to understand Nietzsche, you probably need "The Birth of Tragedy," "The Genealogy of Morals," "Beyond Good and Evil" at the least. You get those, and a gem of a work in "The Case of Wagner," a very short work where Nietzsche blasts Wagner for his anti-Semitism, his shallow critique of Christianity, and embrace of the Reich.

Will you need more Nietzsche than this? Probably - you'll most certainly need to read Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, and The Anti-Christ, which you won't get here, just to understand "Ecce Homo," which is included here. But again, this is an excellent starting point.

[Vanja Antonijevic · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, a note about the collection itself. It includes Nietzsche’s: “The Birth of Tragedy”, “Beyond Good and Evil”, “On the Genealogy of Morals”, “Case of Wagner”, and “Ecce Homo”. These are all excellent books, and the first three may serve as excellent introductions and general surveys of Nietzsche, especially the second and third in the list.

Also, there is a miscellaneous collection of sections from other books, notes, and letters.

For those that want to read more Nietzsche, the perfect complement is the “Portable Nietzsche”. It is by the same excellent translator, and is purposely made to complement the “Basic Writings of Nietzsche”. Between those two books you will find almost all of Nietzsche’s best major works, and various representative collections from other works, letters, and notes. The “Portable Nietzsche” includes a complete version of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “Twilight of the Idols”, “The Antichrist”, and “Nietzsche Contra Wagner”.

Now, here comes my general statement: Nietzsche is my favorite philosopher so far.


Why?

1. Among the great philosophers, Nietzsche is an unsurpassed writer, and is regarded as one of the best German prose writers of all time.

Only one great philosopher truly matches him in style and readability- Plato.

2. Great critic.

Nietzsche may not have much in the form of systematic philosophy, but he is great at eloquently and profoundly challenging past “wisdom”. His favorite targets, of course, are previous philosophers (every one of them) and Christianity.

3. Great titles.

Just to name a few of his titles: “Beyond Good and Evil”, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, “the Antichrist”, “Twilight of the Idols”, “the Dawn”, and the post-humorous title based on a phrase Nietzsche also coined- “The Will to Power”. I invite you to contrast these with Kant’s memorable titles such as “Groundwork on the Metaphysics of Morals”, “Metaphysical Foundation of the Sciences”, “Critique of Judgment”, or the ever popular, “The Only Possible Argument in Support of the Existence of God”.

Nietzsche’s titles draw you to read them, and once you do, you realize that his actual writing is just as creative and memorable, and of course, very profound.

4. Very modest

Actually this remark is sarcastic. Nietzsche does not hide his very high opinion of himself and his writing.

For example, his chapters of his autobiography, “Ecce Homo”, include: “Why I am So Wise”, “Why I am So Clever”, “Why I Write Such Good Books”, and “Why I am a Destiny”.

He had the highest esteem for “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, as he wrote in the “Genealogy of Morals”:

“Regarding my Zarathustra, for example, I do not allow that anyone knows that book who has not at some time been profoundly wounded and at some time profoundly delighted by every word in it; for only then may he enjoy the privilege of reverentially sharing in the halcyon element out of which that book was born and in its sunlight, clarity, remoteness, breadth, and certainty.”

5. Shock value.

Nietzsche purposely, enthusiastically, directly, and eloquently attacks all religion (especially Christianity), and past moral philosophy which are foundation stones for most people’s moral outlooks. Consequently, he is bound to say something which will shock or infuriate you- or at the very least challenge you and force you to rethink.

[Mohammed omran · Rating 4 out of 5]

سيطرت على نيتشه فكرة الإنسان الأعلى ولكن ليس بالمعنى الفيزيائي و الفسيولوجي الذي تحدث عنه داروين ، البعض انتقد هذه الفكره ، فكرة الإنسان الأعلى وأعتبرها عنصريه لأنها لا تقوم على مبدأ بأن الناس سواسية ، ولكن من يفهم فكرته بعمق أكثر يجدها بعيده عن العنصرية ، فكرة الإنسان الأعلى وضحها احد الفلاسفة بمثال ، فمثلا في الزواج عندما تتزوج امرأة ورجل من طبقه تحمل مزايا من الذكاء والُرقي وغيرها من المزايا ، الرجل والمرأة يسمحون ويعطون الابناء فرصه ان يكونوا افضل منهم ، ولكن في حال تزوج الرجل والمرأة من طبقه لا تحمل اي مزايا ، عندها الابناء لن يكونوا افضل منهم بل اقل منهم ، نيتشه مهتم جدا بأن يتقدم الإنسان ويتطور الى أعلى ، فإختيار الإنسان الجيد هو بذلك يساهم في خدمة البشرية إلى الصعود إلى الأعلى

نيتشه لا يقيس على الحب بل يقيس على المزايا التي تدفع للحب ، فهو يُنكر فكرة الحب الأعمى وفكرة الحب بدون اسباب ، بل هو يجعل المزايا الجيده هي التي ينبغي ان تكون دافع للحب للوصول إلى فكرة الإنسان الأعلى ، فكلما ارتبط الإنسان بإنسان اعلى منه ارتقى وكلما ارتبط بإنسان اقل منه انزله عن مستواه اي شده الى الحضيض
وهذه حقيقة ولكن البعض لا يريد أن يؤمن بها فتجد غالبيه تعرف جيداً مزاياها ومع ذلك تتمسك بمن هم أقل مستوى منهم وذلك ينبع من فكرة الخوف وعدم الثقه لأن مَن هم افضل مني ربما يمارس علي دور الفوقيه او ربما صعب التعامل معه وكل تلك الامور سبب في نزول الإنسان في مستواه عند الإختيار ، فهو بذلك يُحطم فكرة نيتشه 😊

فكرة الإنسان الأعلى ، البعض ايضا يربط بين نيتشه وهتلر من حيث ان نيتشه ينادي بالأعلى وهتلر ينادي بالأقوى ، والكثير يقول بأن هتلر تأثر بأفكار نيتشه خاصة بعد انتشار صور هتلر وهو يزور أخت نيتشه بعد وفاة نيتشه ، وايضا توجد صوره يظهر فيها هتلر وهو يُمعن النظر وبنظرة إعجاب لتمثال نيتشه ، في الحقيقة انا اجد هناك فرق بين الأعلى والأقوى ، الأعلى تحتكم الى خدمة الإنسانية وتحسين البشرية ، بينما الاقوى تحتكم الى التسلط والجبرية وأخذ كل شيء بمبدأ القوة والعنف
ايضا نيتشه كما وصفه احد الفلاسفة بأن هو اول من اعطى الصدمه للعقل البشري فأفكاره كانت تدعو الإنسان الى التفكير وعدم الخنوع ودائما مَن يُعطي الأفكار الاولى ويصدم الناس بها يُحارب ولكن بعد ذلك وبعد زوال الصدمه يُنسب الفضل له
اما هتلر فهو رفع شعار الإبادة وكأنه هو مَن يقرر مَن يستحق الحياه ومَن يستحق الموت ، هناك فرق بين ان اقول الإنسان عليه ان يعلو وبين لغة القتل
فمن الظلم وضع هتلر ونيتشه في خانة المقارنه والربط ، اما بالنسبة لرأي نيتشه بالمرأة بالتأكيد انا ضده ليس لأني امرأة بل لأن رأيه بالمرأة مقتبس من خذلانه من المرأة ومن رفض المرأة له وكذلك مقتبس من الفترة الزمنية التي عاش فيها نيتشه

من اقوال نيتشه اذا ذهبت للمرأة فلا تنسى أن تأخذ السوط معك ، بغض النظر عن الغضب الذي يعتري المرأة عند قراءة هذه العبارة ، ولكن سبق ان تحدثت بأن هناك نوعية من النساء تعشق دور الرجل المتسلط عليها وهذا الأمر لا يحتكر على النساء في القرن الثامن عشر بل اليوم تجد هذه الفئة موجوده ولو فكرنا بالعقل قليلاً لو كانت هذه الفئة غير موجوده لوجدنا اختلاف في وضع المرأة ولوجدنا اختلاف في تعامل الرجل مع المرأة ولكن الحقيقة هؤلاء الفئة التي تعشق السوط وهو تعبير ليس عن الضرب فقط بل هو تعبير عن تسلط الرجل هي فئة موجوده ولا احد يستطيع إنكارها
ايضا هناك حقيقة اعظم الفلاسفة كانوا يحملون العدائيه للمرأة فلا ننسى قول ارسطو وهو مُعلم البشرية كما يقال ، عبارة ارسطو تقول بأن المرأة والعبد من طبيعة واحدة 😡 ، بالنسبة لي الذكور في حال عدم استيعاب المرأة وفهمها يقولون بأنها لُغز ، وفي حال خذلانهم من المرأة يحملون العدائية لها ، وانا دائما مَن يحاول تصنيف المرأة وتحليلها وكأنها كائن غريب لم يعيش في هذا الكوكب ، لا اتبنى اي رأي له للمرأة واطلق عليه مصطلح عاجز في فهم المرأة والحقيقة الرجل والمرأة في موقف عداء دائم لأنهم في مرحلة عجز عن فهم الآخر

[Domhnall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent edition of the key Nietzsche books, not too large to handle and carry comfortably, and with notes that are helpful and informative without interfering with enjoyment. It was challenging to read but well worth the effort. Nietzsche definitely becomes more and more accessible as one gets accustomed to his style and to his lines of thinking. There are both good and bad guides out there, including some that are not so much bad as evil on YouTube, but there is no substitute for reading the source material, because only in that way is it possible to avoid being misled by commentators who misrepresent what he says. In his comments here, Kaufmann remarks that one of the best critics of Nietzsche's writing is Nietzsche himself, and some of his self criticism is included in this collection. Kaufmann says this is partly because Nietzsche takes the trouble to read his own books, which many of his critics don't. I thought this was just a clever remark until viewing several YouTube hatchet jobs opened my eyes to just how true and important that comment is. People really do set themselves up to make detailed criticisms of Nietzsche without reading what he said. Either that or they lie to dissuade others from reading Nietzsche for themselves. (I will not give links - they will speedily appear if you look). At this stage in my reading, I already greatly admire Nietzsche. I accept that I am predisposed that way and I can easily see why others would dislike him and even be enraged by him. That's life. But it would be such a shame to form (or accept at second hand) an opinion without giving him at least a reasonable opportunity to speak for himself and this volume will certainly reward the effort of reading his own words.

[A · Rating 5 out of 5]

9.5/10.

“I have been told . . . how getting used to my writings ‘spoils’ one’s taste. One simply can no longer endure other books”. Indeed. The only writer who has prose as incisive as that of Nietzsche is Nassim Taleb. Nietzsche has a punch, a power, a lightning bolt from above that electrifies the mind. He does not refute ideas, but electrocutes them to death.

[Peter Crouse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Red Bull does not give you wings... Nietzsche does

[Erik Graff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had already read some of the texts in this collection prior to finding this affordable Modern Library Giant. Having been into Nietzsche for some three years or so already, and being seduced into Kaufmann's style of translation, I was trying to assemble everything, preferably in hardcover.

Nietzsche, like Plato, is a philosopher kids can read with profit. Of course, not being familiar with the historical and cultural contexts out of which they wrote, one can go quite wrong in one's interpretation. Fortunately, as a former history major, I knew Nietzsche's context pretty well. It was only years later, after reading all of Plato, that the study of classical Greek history showed how I, and most of my teachers, had substantially misread Plato.

The theme of Germanness as opposed to his own, more cosmopolitan vision is very important to a lot of Nietzsche's work as he lived in the midst of building of the modern German state, dying between the Franco-Prussian and the Great War. Much of my appreciation of the cultural aspect of his work, his writings and his music, was owing to an extraordinary girlfriend.

Her name was Janny Marie Willis, a name probably different now as she has since married. She came to Grinnell as a freshman when I was a senior with a college Work-Study position at the campus Pub-Club. The drinking age was eighteen back then and she was a regular. Although only a first-year student she had a reputation as quite the formidable intellect. She was also blonde and big boned, physically formidable, weighing as much as me.

Robert Gehorsam, another intellectually formidable person there, introduced us at the bar. He had known her first and knew her better. Hanging with him led to other circumstances involving her.

One night, after the bar closed, she invited me to her dorm room, a single on the North Campus--quite exceptional for a freshman. It was heavily decorated with fabrics on the walls, a big travel chest and books all over the place in several languages. Lighting a candle, Janny showed me one of her prizes: Joseph Goebbels early work on Dostoevsky, in German. Her dad was a mathematician in the federal civil service and she had been all over the place, following his career from the Netherlands, to Germany, to various places in the States. She spoke German, Dutch and English fluently. She appeared to have read much of what I had read, but in the original languages. Like myself, she was attracted both to the Russian and the German cultures. I was very mightily impressed. This was the first time I had ever met a woman of my age cohort who knew more than I did about the kinds of things you learn in books. After that visit, I was smitten.

The relationship with Janny continued through the rest of the senior year. Then she moved to Park Ridge for the following summer, taking courses in psychology at Forest Hospital in DesPlaines. When I went on to professional school in New York, she soon transferred from Grinnell to Barnard, her mother's old school, and moved in with me, decorating my walls with fabrics and adding her books to an already considerable collection. By then, I was married for all intents and purposes.

Janny had a major influence on my studies. In addition to just generally challenging me to learn as much as possible to keep up with her, she inspired me to read pretty much all of Dostoevsky and a lot of other Russian and German literature.

The relationship ended with her leaving me, ostensibly for another, but there were probably deeper reasons. She had never lived so long in one place, had never been so long with one man or with one so young. My stolidity was at once attractive and threatening. Notwithstanding, the relationships she encouraged between myself and a considerable cross-section of the Western canon have endured.

[Matthew Wilder · Rating 5 out of 5]

The inventor of Twitter avant la lettre, Nietzsche was propelled by an obsession that didn’t make sense till, oh, somewhere in the 2010’s: the anti-life people. He does not mean abortion advocates. He means the guilt-riddled and guilt-worshiping, the shiveringly self-flagellating, the followers of the Christ’s “And the last shall be first.” They are the opposite of the Blonde Beast, which most twentieth century readers pictured as John Phillip Law or Dolph Lundgren with a machine gun. Nietzsche lamented the blessed-are-the-weaks but as for the strongs—-well, there’s less specificity. Zarathustra is not Hitler or Putin or Trump—and to my twenty-first-century ears, when Nietzsche goes into the eternal recurrence, it’s like listening to Kanye talk about “raising people’s vibrations.” But dig in here—Nietzsche has more to say about the existential threat to our civilization today than any online-mag or cable-news pundit. Just avoid the inanities by Heidegger and, SACRE bleu!, Deleuze that cap it off!

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

I decided reading a bit of Nietzsche on the side when my brain felt like firing would be fun... because I hate myself.

---------------------------

I lost steam with this book, and it took me a while to limp through it. And maybe Nietzsche didn't deserve that. Nietzsche was a fascinating man who was brave enough to think critically about the people and the societal structures around him. For that reason, I think he should be read and understood. His nuggets on religion electrified me. The concept that what is "moral," "good," or "right" has been defined by the elite and is not reflective of the populous? Genius. His urging that man seek his pleasure and purpose is something we still haven't fully realized.

But, on the other hand, maybe Nietzsche did deserve my reluctant limping. Because therein lies the problem: his urging that MAN seek HIS pleasure. Nietzsche can be as sexist little shit. And yeah, ok, a victim of his time or whatever, but I found myself rolling my eyes at him sometimes, and it made working through his works somewhat arduous. Take this from Beyond Good and Evil:

Woman has much reason for shame; so much pedantry, superficiality, schoolmarmishness, petty presumption, petty licentiousness and immodesty lies concealed in woman-one only needs to study her behavior with children!-and so far all this was at bottom best repressed and kept under control by fear of man. Woe when "the eternally boring in woman" -she is rich in that!- is permitted to venture forth!

JFC, Nietzsche. What were you, the OG incel?

Despite this, there are some great quotes. A couple of favorites:

Nothing has been exercised and cultivated better and longer among men so far than obedience.

"I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that," says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually-memory yields.

Christianity has been the most calamitous kind of arrogance yet.

The Christian resolve to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.

PS. I completely skipped The Case of Wagner. Oops/oh well/sorry not sorry.

[William Schram · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic and enlightening book. Of course I had heard of Nietzsche, who hasn't in this day and age, but I have not had the pleasure of reading his works. Now I had heard of the Nazis, the nationalist whatever, the overarching philosophy of Nietzsche being the Will to Power, the Blond Beast and all of that, but I really wanted to see that sort of thing in context, which is what brought me to take this out of my local library.

Kaufmann's translation does quite the service to Nietzsche, allowing for his little puns and other play on words to come through, even though it has to be explained. This particular book contains five full works of Nietzsche and they are as follows:

The Birth of Tragedy,
Beyond Good and Evil,
On the Genealogy of Morals,
The Case of Wagner,
Ecce Homo.

Along with these full works are some aphorisms, selections from Nietzsche's correspondence and variants of drafts for Ecce Homo. Overall, even this book isn't enough to get the whole portion of Nietzsche's philosophy and I will probably have to read even more of him to 'get' it. Even so, what I did read, I enjoyed and I look forward to more.

[Anthony Hagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Increasingly, my idea of a great writer isn’t necessarily someone with whom I agree - agreement and disagreement often seem like useless concepts to me, especially after reading Nietzsche - but instead someone who presents an original, authentic, non-doctrinaire perspective. Nietzsche is that - to use a phrase he enjoys - “par excellence.”

[Ciro · Rating 5 out of 5]

The world longs for the return of such a mind

[Bill FromPA]

Beyond Good and Evil
I. On the Prejudices of Philosophers
A philosophy that begins with doubt that opposites exist. Then neither "free will" - man as his own existential creation - nor "unfree will" - man as the product of environmental and social forces - can be credited.
II. The Free Spirits
The philosophers of the future who think beyond piars of opposites, outside rules of grammer (e.g., a predicate requires a subject), but wear masks - exoteric and esoteric maenings.
III. What is Religion?
The "miracle" of the saint due to a belief in opposites - the completely "bad" man becomes the completely "good" man.
Religion is a useful tool of control in the hands of a philosopher, but destructive when it becomes dominant. Christianity has weakened Europe by perpetuating weakness in the populace.
IV. Aphorisms and Interludes
V. Natural History of Morals
Philosophers have sought a rational basis for morality, not to describe morality and probe its origins. Adumbrates On the Genealogy of Morals.
European morality (Judeo-Christian, democratic, socialist) is "herd" morality which condemns any behavior harmful to the herd, including nonconformist behavior outside of certain limits.
The final section anticipates "new philosophers" who may be a version of Zarathustra's "superman".
VI. We Scholars
More on the new philosophers, not "objective men" or skeptics (or, not only skeptics). The new philosophers create values, are commanders and legislators, and above all, are against their time.

And thinking itself they [most thinkers and scholars] consider something slow and hesitant, almost as toil, and often enough as "worthy of the sweat of the noble" - but not in the least as something light, divine, closely related to dancing and high spirits. "Thinking" and taking a matter "seriously," considering it "grave" - for them all this belongs together: that is the only way they have "experienced" it.

VII. Our Virtues
Instances of Nietzsche being against his time. The last 8 sections are a mire of misogyny.
VIII. Peoples and Fatherlands
Meditations on Germany and the German character; excursus on England (bad) and France (good). Nietzsche claims to love "the south", but takes neither Spain nor Italy seriously as European nations. Examples of N.'s anti-antisemitism. Nationalism vs. Europeanism.
IX. What is Noble (Vornehm)
Master morality: good=noble, bad=contemptible Commands and creates values.
Slave morality: good=beneficial or harmless, evil=harmful, fear-inducing. Obeys, receives values.

[Steven Belanger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"God is dead" is not SOLELY about God, or religion. Discuss.

What can one say? An ingenious compendium by a man who was a genius, who was head of a department of philosophy of a world-renowned university at 24, misunderstood (and mistranslated and mistreated) in his own lifetime, who knew he would be misunderstood, mistranslated and mistreated in his own lifetime, who became discouraged, depressed, spent too much time alone, got syphilis from sleeping with prostitutes, died in an asylum with the mentality of a (deranged) child, was further mistranslated by his sister so that the world, for a time, thought he was an anti-Semite when in fact she was, and who long after he died, turned the world on its ear by his ideas and writings, and who, at the end, may have been right about authenticity and good faith after all.

One of the world's few true geniuses. Ever.

And Walter Kaufmann is a truly great translator, as well. If only he could do the same for Sartre.

[Jee Koh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book collects together "The Birth of Tragedy," "Beyond Good and Evil," "On the Genealogy of Morals," "The Case of Wagner," "Ecce Homo" as well as seventy-five aphorisms from "Human, All-Too-Human," "Mixed Opinions and Maxims," "The Wanderer and His Shadow," "The Dawn," and "The Gay Science."

Why these writings inspire me:

1. He is a philosopher but he is also a writer; in fact, the two in him are indistinguishable.

2. He loves what is noble, instead of what is good; he hates what is contemptible, instead of what is evil.

3. He is a psychologist.

4. He is a historian.

5. He stares into the abyss, and sends art over it. Against absurdity, pessimism, asceticism, he opposes the will to power, the will to recreate values.

6. He values sex for its own sake, as a force for life.

7. He is a prophet.

[Nemo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I’ve known Nietzsche advocates nihilism. I thought it is a book on being strong and believe in your own philosophies(I confused it with stoicism). But well I was wrong. This book is the definition of cynicism, it tears down the foundation of everything admirable regarded in the common belief of our society; Nietzsche view everything with despise like a madman, but somehow ingeniously said the true sarcasm unseen in our minds. Everyone who read this will definitely find some notions that may appear as appalling and throw you into an abyss of despair. I think it may not be an ideal book reading for enlightenment and self-help, and it is no good believing and agreeing to every doctrine mention and argued in the essays, but how Nietzsche see the reality that we confront everyday is eye-opening and thought provoking: it makes you realise how small and feeble human is, instead to be fed up by common lies and illusions fabricated by thousands of people, that make us the dominating race feel “highly”. But somehow I really like how he see things in a very transparent way under the veil of illusions created by our consciousness, even how he view these truths he uncovered is not the best and overly pessimistic.

[Haley Lipford]

Read for class.

[Stewart James · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic anthology; the brief commentary by Heidegger/Camus/Deleuze was a treat!

[morgs · Rating 2 out of 5]

pretentious mf who’s the type to say “we live on a floating rock”

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great iconoclast, the destroyer, the philosopher that set the course for what all great fiction in the modern world would look and feel like.

Trying to write a review for Nietzsche's work is idiotic, especially considering the plethora of 45min~ videos that can do the same job ten times better than I can, especially compared to a couple of paragraphs off of goodreads.

I've yet to read all of his works, only most of what's in this collection is that is major (On the Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil). I still have Ecce Homo, The Gay Science, and of the course the legendary Zarathustra to read, but the man has me ensnared as it is from this work alone. Let this be a flat-out recommendation and rating for all of his works, a superb writer and philospher.

[Eric Hertenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nietzsche is nothing if not provocative. And you've got to read this stuff with a critical mind to it - if you're just trying to accept it all you'll get angry pretty quick. But Nietzsche is pretty much trying to break down the ways in which acceptance and complacence were institutionalized by European culture - and continue to be.

But you've got the whole range here - The Birth of Tragedy is young Nietzsche at his most careful, but still a cocky bastard. At the other end of the spectrum, and Nietzsche's life, there's Ecce Homo where cockiness has bloomed into unchecked curmudgeonliness. In between, Beyond Good and Evil, which is my continual justification for critical thought, a lucid dream of a book where Nietzsche transcends his contrariness and provocation and enters into the sublime.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a hard book to read, there is nothing basic about these writings, however, it was also beautifully written. I can definitely see the influence Nietzsche had on Yukio Mishima, not just in terms of philosophy, but also in the downright literary, beautiful metaphors.
Nietzsche has a unique perspective, which although I still need to question if I even understand, has been an amazingly creative experience for me.
My only issue is with Nietzsche shameless sexism. It's weird how his philosophy can easily been seen as a precursor to feminism, especially how society creates ideas about people, and nations blindly follow those ideas. If Nietzsche had fought against sexism as strongly as he fought against antisemitism, he would be near perfect. I console myself by seeing the sexism as so jarring that it shows, to our contemporary eyes, that sexism is a blight.
Regardless, Nietzsche, with his life loving philosophy, is a must read.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not going to lie, this book got a little long. I was really into the writing at the beginning, but by the end I had begun to lose interest. Despite that though, this was still an enjoyable classic and I'm glad that I read it.

[Haris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Greatest book ever written...

Nietzsche's style, content, form, and sheer expressiveness stands by itself in the history of philosophy. Nietzsche's work is the epitome of self-determination, creativity, cheerfulness, courage, and independence of spirit.

[AJ Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Profound and poetic.

[Doug Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seminal read for human existence.

[Gerardo B. Herrera · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Nietzsche is pure pleasure. Walter Kaufmann's translation is superb.

[eve anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this for pretentious reasons

[Peter]

finished The case of Wagner (24/02/23)
finished Ecce Homo (07/03/23)
finished BoT (20/02/23)
finished BGE (23/03/23)