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About this quote

What does it mean?
The sick are the greatest danger to the healthy; weakness, not strength, harms the strong.
In plain terms
Weakness poses a greater threat to the strong than strength does.
What can you take from it?
Beware of hidden vulnerabilities.

Where it applies

  • political power
  • social dynamics
  • personal relationships

Putting it to work

  • monitoring hidden threats
  • protecting against subtle harm

Questions to consider

  • What makes weakness dangerous?
  • Can strength be a threat to itself?

Another view

It overlooks that the healthy can also harm the sick.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

  1. The advent of the Christian God, as the maximum god attained so far, was therefore accompanied by the maximum feeling of guilty indebtedness on earth.

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  2. A strong and well-constituted man digests his experiences (deeds and misdeeds all included) just as he digests his meats, even when he has some tough morsels t…

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  3. All instincts that do not discharge themselves outwardly turn inward - this is what I call the internalization of man: thus it was that man first developed wha…

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