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Thoughts out of Season, Part I

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche · 1876-1877 primary

passage 37 of 115 · PART ONE > PART I (36/110)

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in brief
Nietzsche answers his first question by likening the Straussian Philistine’s relation to great art to a parasitic worm—destroying, digesting, and devouring—while noting how worm-like heavens arise from bodily life.

any minute capable of saying what the Duchesse Delaforte said to Madame de Staël, to wit: "My dear, I must confess that I find no one but myself invariably right."

VI.

A corpse is a pleasant thought for a worm, and a worm is a dreadful thought for every living creature. Worms fancy their kingdom of heaven in a fat body; professors of philosophy seek theirs in rummaging among Schopenhauer's entrails, and as long as rodents exist, there will exist a heaven for rodents. In this, we have the answer to our first question: How does the believer in the new faith picture his heaven? The Straussian Philistine harbours in the works of our great poets and musicians like a parasitic worm whose life is destruction, whose admiration is devouring, and whose worship is digesting.

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topics: courage and cowardice · fate, destiny, and necessity · justice as a virtue

Thoughts out of Season, Part I · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche · 1876–1877