Quote #129

Physiologists should think twice before positioning the drive for self-preservation as the cardinal drive of an organic being. Above all, a living thing wants to discharge its strength - life itself is will to power -: self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent consequences of this.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

  1. So you want to live 'according to nature?' Oh, you noble Stoics, what a fraud is in this phrase! Imagine something like nature, profligate …
  2. Independence is an issue that concerns very few people: - it is a prerogative of the strong. And even when somebody has every right to be i…
  3. It is some basic certainty which the noble soul has about itself, something which does not allow itself to be sought out or found or perhap…
  4. People used to believe in 'the soul' as they believed in grammar and the grammatical subject: people said that 'I' was a condition and 'thi…
  5. Then will he who goes under bless himself for being one who goes over and beyond; and the sun of his knowledge will stand at high noon for …
  6. There is a great ladder of religious cruelty, and, of its many rungs, three are the most important. People used to make human sacrifices to…
  7. Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathustra! But your eyes should tell me brightly: free for what?
  8. I did that,' says my memory. 'I could not have done that,' says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually - the memory yields.

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