Beyond Good and Evil

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

He who fights with mon­sters should be care­ful lest he thereby be­come a mon­ster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

Dreadful experiences raise the question whether he who experiences them is not something dreadful also.

Insanity in individuals is something rare—but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.

It seems that in or­der to in­scribe them­selves upon the heart of hu­man­ity with ever­last­ing claims, all great things have first to wander about the earth as enorm­ous and awe-in­spir­ing ca­ri­ca­tures:

any­one were to say to them, “A lofty spir­itu­al­ity is bey­ond all com­par­ison with the hon­esty and re­spect­ab­il­ity of a merely moral man”—it would make them furi­ous,

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.

de­cis­ive sense; the greater part of the con­scious think­ing of a philo­sopher is secretly in­flu­enced by his in­stincts, and forced into def­in­ite chan­nels. And be­hind all lo­gic and its seem­ing sov­er­eignty of move­ment, there are valu­ations, or

the will to ig­nor­ance,

What really is this “Will to Truth” in us?