Category: Lit & Crit

Betrothed to FacebookBetrothed to Facebook

Tetman Callis 2 Comments 4:51 am

“We deceive ourselves if we believe that there are violent passions like ambition and love that can triumph over others. Idleness, languishing as she is, does not often fail in being mistress; she usurps authority over all the plans and actions of life; imperceptibly consuming and destroying both passions and virtues.” – Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Reflections (trans. Bund & Friswell)

How low can you goHow low can you go

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 3:16 am

“Humility is often a feigned submission which we employ to supplant others. It is one of the devices of Pride to lower us to raise us; and truly pride transforms itself in a thousand ways, and is never so well disguised and more able to deceive than when it hides itself under the form of humility.” – Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Reflections (trans. Bund & Friswell)

Tree falling in the forest, variation ∞Tree falling in the forest, variation ∞

Tetman Callis 2 Comments 5:42 am

”No one can extract from things, books included, more than he already knows.  What one has no access to through experience one has no ear for.  Now let us imagine an extreme case: that a book speaks of nothing but events which lie outside the possibility of general or even of rare experience—that it is the first language for a new range of experiences.  In this case simply nothing will be heard, with the acoustical illusion that where nothing is heard there is nothing,” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo (trans. Hollingdale; emphasis in original)

Still doing what they canStill doing what they can

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 4:44 am

“Christianity robbed us of the harvest of the culture of the ancient world, it later went on to rob us of the harvest of the culture of Islam.  The wonderful Moorish cultural world of Spain, more closely related to us at bottom, speaking more directly to our senses and taste, than Greece and Rome, was trampled down (—I do not say by what kind of feet—): why? because it was noble, because it owed its origin to manly instincts, because it said Yes to life even in the rare and exquisite treasures of Moorish life!…  Later on, the Crusaders fought against something they would have done better to lie down in the dust before—a culture compared with which even our nineteenth century may well think itself very impoverished and very ‘late.’—They wanted booty, to be sure: the Orient was rich….  But let us not be prejudiced!  The Crusades—higher piracy, that is all!  German knighthood, Viking Knighthood at bottom, was there in its element: the Church knew only too well what German knighthood can be had for….  The German knights, always the ‘Switzers’ of the Church, always in the service of all the bad instincts of the Church—but well paid….  That it is precisely with the aid of German swords, German blood and courage, that the Church has carried on its deadly war against everything noble on earth!  A host of painful questions arises at this point.  The German aristocracy is virtually missing in the history of higher culture: one can guess the reason….  Christianity, alcohol—the two great means of corruption.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases and ellipses in original)

They bruise easilyThey bruise easily

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 3:38 am

“A right is a privilege.  The privilege of each is determined by the nature of his being.  Let us not underestimate the privileges of the mediocre.  Life becomes harder and harder as it approaches the heights—the coldness increases, the responsibility increases.  A high culture is a pyramid: it can stand only on a broad base, its very first prerequisite is a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity.  The crafts, trade, agriculture, science, the greater part of art, in a word the entire compass of professional activity, are in no way compatible with anything other than mediocrity in ability and desires; these things would be out of place among the élite, the instinct pertaining to them is as much opposed to aristocracy as it is to anarchy.  To be a public utility, a cog, a function, is a natural vocation, it is not society, it is a kind of happiness of which the great majority are alone capable, which makes intelligent machines of them.  For the mediocre it is happiness to be mediocre; mastery in one thing, specialization, is for them a natural instinct.  It would be quite unworthy of a more profound mind to see an objection in mediocrity as such.  It is even the prime requirement for the existence of exceptions; a high culture is conditional upon it.  When an exceptional human being handles the mediocre more gently than he does himself or his equals, this is not merely politeness of the heart—it is simply his duty.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases in original)

Don’t touch that!Don’t touch that!

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 5:04 am

“The old God, all ‘spirit,’ all high priest, all perfection, promenades in his garden: but he is bored.  Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain.  What does he do?  He invents man—man is entertaining….  But behold, man too is bored.  God’s sympathy with the only kind of distress found in every Paradise knows no bounds: he forthwith creates other animals.  God’s first blunder: man did not find the animals entertaining—he dominated them, he did not even want to be an ‘animal.’—Consequently God created woman.  And then indeed there was an end to boredom—but also to something else!  Woman was God’s second blunder.—‘Woman is in her essence serpent, Heva’—every priest knows that; ‘every evil comes into the world through woman’—every priest knows that likewise.  ‘Consequently, science too comes into the world through her’….  Only through woman did man learn to taste the tree of knowledge.—What had happened?  A mortal terror seized on the old God.  Man himself had become God’s greatest blunder; God had created for himself a rival, science makes equal to God—it is all over with priests and gods if man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is the forbidden in itself—it alone is forbidden.  Science is the first sin, the germ of all sins, original sin.  This alone constitutes morality.—‘Thou shalt not know’—the rest follows.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases and ellipses in original)

My family fears for my soul when I post such quotes as thisMy family fears for my soul when I post such quotes as this

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 5:01 am

“The great lie of personal immortality destroys all rationality, all naturalness of instinct—all that is salutary, all that is life-furthering, all that holds a guarantee of the future in the instincts henceforth excites mistrust.  So to live that there is no longer any meaning in living: that now becomes the meaning of life….  What is the point of public spirit, what is the point of gratitude for one’s descent and one’s forefathers, what is the point of co-operation, trust, of furthering and keeping in view the general welfare?…  So many ‘temptations,’ so many diversions from the ‘right road’—‘one thing is needful’….  That, as an ‘immortal soul,’ everybody is equal to everybody else, that in the totality of beings the ‘salvation’ of every single one is permitted to claim to be of everlasting moment, that little bigots and three-quarters madmen are permitted to imagine that for their sakes the laws of nature are continually being broken—such a raising of every sort of egoism to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases and ellipses in original)

Son of a preacher-manSon of a preacher-man

Tetman Callis 2 Comments 5:24 am

“Even with the most modest claim to integrity one must know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope does not merely err in every sentence he speaks, he lies—that he is no longer free to lie ‘innocently,’ out of ‘ignorance.’  The priest knows as well as anyone that there is no longer any ‘God,’ any ‘sinner,’ any ‘redeemer’—that ‘free will,’ ‘moral world-order’ are lies—intellectual seriousness, the profound self-overcoming of the intellect, no longer permits anyone not to know about these things….  All the concepts of the Church are recognized for what they are: the most malicious false-coinage there is for the purpose of disvaluing nature and natural values; the priest himself is recognized for what he is: the most dangerous kind of parasite, the actual poison-spider of life….  We know, our conscience knows today—what those sinister inventions of priest and Church are worth, what end they serve, with which that state of human self-violation has brought about which is capable of exciting disgust at the sight of mankind—the concepts ‘Beyond,’ ‘Last Judgement,’ ‘immortality of the soul,’ the ‘soul’ itself: they are instruments of torture, they are forms of systematic cruelty by virtue of which the priest has become master, stays master….  Everyone knows this: and everyone none the less remains unchanged.  Where have the last feelings of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen, in other ways very unprejudiced kinds of men and practical anti-Christians through and through, still call themselves Christians today and go to Communion?” — Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ (trans. Hollingdale; emphases and ellipses in original)

For instance, educationFor instance, education

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 8:56 am

“The entire West has lost those instincts out of which institutions grow, out of which the future grows: perhaps nothing goes so much against the grain of its ‘modern spirit’ as this.  One lives for today, one lives very fast—one lives very irresponsibly: it is precisely this which one calls ‘freedom’.  That which makes institutions institutions is despised, hated, rejected: whenever the word ‘authority’ is so much as heard one believes oneself in danger of a new slavery.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (trans. Hollingdale; emphases in original)

Nothing to stick your tongue out atNothing to stick your tongue out at

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 5:15 am

“The struggle against purpose in art is always a struggle against the moralizing tendency in art, against the subordination of art to morality.  L’art pour l’art means : ‘the devil take morality!’—But this very hostility betrays that moral prejudice is still dominant.  When one has excluded from art the purpose of moral preaching and human improvement it by no means follows that art is completely purposeless, goalless, meaningless, in short l’art pour l’art—a snake biting its own tail.  ‘Rather no purpose at all than a moral purpose!’—thus speaks mere passion.  A psychologist asks on the other hand: what does all art do? does it not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not highlight?  By doing all this it strengthens or weakens certain valuations.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (trans. Hollingdale; emphases in original)

Dancing on the ceilingDancing on the ceiling

Tetman Callis 6 Comments 4:38 am

“No one can spend more than he has—that is true of individuals, it is also true of nations.  If one spends oneself on power, grand politics, economic affairs, world commerce, parliamentary institutions, military interests—if one expends in this direction the quantum of reason, seriousness, will, self-overcoming that one is, then there will be a shortage in the other direction.  Culture and the state—one should not deceive oneself over this—are antagonists: the ‘cultural state’ is merely a modern idea.  The one lives off the other, the one thrives at the expense of the other.  All great cultural epochs are epochs of political decline: that which is great in the cultural sense has been unpolitical, even anti-political.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols (trans. Hollingdale; emphasis in original)

Eternal veritiesEternal verities

Tetman Callis 0 Comments 4:35 am

“Unfortunately, we are bound up in ourselves, and we really can only perceive through our own eyes and our own heart, and what we see is us. We think we’re exploring exterior worlds, but we’re not, so undoubtedly it’s the same consciousness, the same voice. But the intellectual excitement is when you tap into the idiosyncratic, eccentric selfness that you know is time-bound and experience-bound—and I do believe this—that you’re tapping into the knowledge of the species. The fact is that you can find your truth, but it’s also the truth about human nature.” — Diane Williams (interview with John O’Brien, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Fall 2003, Vol. 23.3)