Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher and classical philologist whose writings subjected Western morality, religion and philosophy to radical criticism. His work examined nihilism, the transformation of values, the will to power and the cultural consequences of humanity’s changing relationship with traditional systems of meaning.
SELECTED TEXTS
From On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (1873)
“In some remote corner of the universe, scattered and glittering through countless solar systems, there was once a star on which clever animals invented knowledge. It was the most arrogant and mendacious minute in the ‘history of the world’ — but only a minute.
After a few breaths of nature, the star grew cold, and the clever animals had to die.”
Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne (On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense), 1873. English translation from the original German prepared for The Planet’s Cancer.
From The Gay Science (1882)
“224. Critique of Animals
I fear that animals regard man as a creature like themselves who has, in an extremely dangerous way, lost sound animal understanding — as the insane animal, the laughing animal, the weeping animal, the unhappy animal.”
Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (The Gay Science), 1882, Aphorism 224, “Kritik der Tiere.” English translation from the original German prepared for The Planet’s Cancer.
