Lifes Windows

I don’t know if it’s just me, but I tend to find that most enjoyment from clever folk, comes not from their intellectual reasoning, their grand ideas and beliefs, but in their humour. The way they write, the language they use. There is something humorous about the antiquated.

Reading through Alain De Bottons “The Consolation of Philosophy”, an exploration of six prominent old sages philosophies and how they can console us through our various difficulties, what struck me most was the humour of Nietzsche’s personal life, his embarrassment at his presumed greatness, his views on the English. I derived pleasure laughing at the man. He would in turn laugh at me reading a self-help book disguised as a philosophical study. Not to say De Bottons books isn’t good, at least he makes philosophy more accessible for those of us lacking acumen upstairs.

"I am the Walrus goo goo g'joob"

Nietzsche on:

Modesty

"It is my fate to have to be the first decent human being"

"I have a terrible fear that i shall one day be pronounced holy"

"It seems to me that to take a book of mine into his hands is one of the rarest distinctions that anyone can confer upon himself. I even assume that he removes his shoes when he does so - not to speak of his boots"

Well wishing towards friends

"To those human beings who are of any concern to me i wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities- i wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished"

Displeasing Mother

Verbatim from "The Consolations of Philosophy":

When he next wrote home to his widowed mother and his nineteen year old sister in Naumburg, Nietzsche replaced the usual reports on his diet and the progress of his studies with a summary of his new philosophy of renunciation and resignation:

"We know that life consists of suffering, that the harder we try to enjoy it, the more enslaved we are by it, and so we should discard the goods of life and practise abstinence"

It sounded strange to his mother, who wrote back explaining that she didn't like 'that kind of display or that kind of opinion so much as a proper letter, full of news', and advised her son to entrust his heart to God and to make sure he was eating properly"

On his Sister

"That vengeful anti Semitic goose"

On his acquired Swiss nationality

"I am distressed to be Swiss!"

On the English

"European vulgarity, the plebianism of modern ideas is the work and invention of England"
"Man does not strive for happiness; only the English do"

Asking for an opinion on his attempt at music

"the most extreme fantastical extravagance, the most irritating and anti musical set of notes on manuscript paper i have seen for a long time. "You designated your music as frightful- it truly is"