Quotessence
Home / Books / Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

Book by Friedrich Nietzsche · 14 quotes · Morality, Philosophy, Blind Faith

Filter quotes by topic

AllMoralityPhilosophyBlind FaithReasonAnti WorkAtheismBeautyBeliefBiasBlindBlindnessChristian FaithChristian MiracleConvictionCritical ThinkingCritical ThoughtCultural CriticismDaybreakDeath Of ReasonDifferences

Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality Quotes

“Doubt as sin. — Christianity has done its utmost to close the circle and declared even doubt to be sin. One is supposed to be cast into belief without reason, by a miracle, and from then on to swim in it as in the brightest and least ambiguous of elements: even a glance towards land, even the thought that one perhaps exists for something else as well as swimming, even the slightest impulse of our amphibious nature — is sin! And notice that all this means that the foundation of belief and all reflection on its origin is likewise excluded as sinful. What is wanted are blindness and intoxication and an eternal song over the waves in which reason has drowned.”

ThinkingReasonPhilosophyPurposeBeliefNatureSinExistenceDoubtAtheismHuman NatureThoughtsReflectionEternityMiracleBlindMetaphorMythMeaningMeaning Of LifePurpose Of LifeResurrectionBlindnessReligious FaithCritical ThinkingChristian FaithBlind FaithIntoxicationOriginWasted LifeSinfulResurrection Of JesusCritical ThoughtChristian MiracleDeath Of ReasonDoubt Is SinFoundation Of Belief
Book:Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Create image

“Business people - Your business - is your greatest prejudice: it ties you to your locality, to the company you keep, to the inclinations you feel. Diligent in business - but indolent in spirit, content with your inadequacy, and with the cloak of duty hung over this contentment: that is how you live, that is how you want your children to live!”

InspirationalPhilosophyCultural Criticism
Book:Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Create image

“Customs and Beauty.—In justice to custom it must not be overlooked that, in the case of all those who conform to it whole-heartedly from the very start, the organs of attack and defence, both physical and intellectual, begin to waste away; i.e. these individuals gradually become more beautiful! For it is the exercise of these organs and their corresponding feelings that brings about ugliness and helps to preserve it. It is for this reason that the old baboon is uglier than the young one, and that the young female baboon most closely resembles man, and is hence the most handsome.—Let us draw from this our own conclusions as to the origin of female beauty!”

BeautySecurityMoralityPurity
Book:Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Create image

“Do not make passion an argument for truth! - O you good-natured and even noble enthusiasts, I know you! You want to win your argument against us, but also against yourself, and above all against yourself!and a subtle and tender bad conscience so often incites you against your enthusiasm! How ingenious you then become in the outwitting and deadening of this conscience! How you hate the honest, the simple, the pure, how you avoid their innocent eyes! That knowing better whose representatives they are and whose voice you hear all too loudly within you, how it casts doubt on your belief- how you seek to make it suspect as a bad habit, as a sickness of the age, as neglect and infection of your own spiritual health! You drive yourself to the point of hating criticism, science, reason! You have to falsify history so that it may bear witness for you, you have to deny virtues so that they shall not cast into the shade those of your idols and ideals! Coloured pictures where what is needed is rational grounds! Ardour and power of expression! Silvery mists! Ambrosial nights! You understand how to illuminate and how to obscure, and how to obscure with light! And truly, when your passion rises to the point of frenzy, there comes a moment when you say to yourself: now I have conquered the good conscience, now I am light of heart, courageous, self-denying, magnificent, now I am honest! How you thirst for those moments when your passion bestows on you perfect self-justification and as it were innocence; when in struggle, intoxication, courage, hope, you are beside yourself and beyond all doubting; when you decree: 'he who is not beside himself as we are can in no way know what and where truth is!' How you thirst to discover people of your belief in this condition - it is that of intellectual vice - and ignite your flame at their torch! Oh your deplorable martyrdom! Oh your deplorable victory of the sanctified lie! Must you inflict so much suffering upon yourself? - Must you?”

TruthPassionIntoleranceNarcissismSelf DelusionDissimulation
Book:Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Create image

“Those who commend work. - In the glorification of 'work', in the unwearied talk of the 'blessing of work', I see the same covert idea as in the praise of useful impersonal actions: that of fear of everything individual. Fundamentally, one now feels at the sight of work - one always means by work that hard industriousness from early till late - that such work is the best policeman, that it keeps everyone in bounds and can mightily hinder the development of reason, covetousness, desire for independence. For it uses up an extraordinary amount of nervous energy, which is thus denied to reflection, brooding, dreaming, worrying, loving, hating; it sets a small goal always in sight and guarantees easy and regular satisfactions. Thus a society in which there is continual hard work will have more security: and security is now worshipped as the supreme divinity. - And now! Horror! Precisely the 'worker' has become dangerous! The place is swarming with 'dangerous individuals'! And behind them the danger of dangers - the individual!”

Anti Work
Book:Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality
Create image