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That immense framework and planking of concepts to which the needy man clings his whole life long in order to preserve himself is nothing but a scaffolding and toy for the most audacious feats of the liberated intellect. And when it smashes this framework to pieces, throws it into confusion, and puts it back together in an ironic fashion, pairing the most alien things and separating the closest, it is demonstrating that it has no need of these makeshifts of indigence and that it will now be guided by intuitions rather than by concepts. There is no regular path which leads from these intuitions into the land of ghostly schemata, the land of abstractions. There exists no word for these intuitions; when man sees them he grows dumb, or else he speaks only in forbidden metaphors and in unheard - of combinations of concepts. He does this so that by shattering and mocking the old conceptual barriers he may at least correspond creatively to the impression of the powerful present intuition.

Friedrich Nietzsche#34

PhilosophyPsychologyCreativityConceptsIntuitionInnovationLiberation

About this quote

What does it mean?
Concepts are a temporary scaffold for the needy mind; breaking them apart and recombining them shows a liberated intellect guided by intuition rather than rigid ideas.
In plain terms
Destroying old concepts frees intuition.
What can you take from it?
Let intuition lead when concepts become limiting.

Where it applies

  • philosophical inquiry
  • artistic creation
  • innovation

Putting it to work

  • challenge existing frameworks
  • experiment with unexpected juxtapositions

Questions to consider

  • How to balance intuition with structure?
  • When is it safe to discard concepts?

Another view

Intuition alone may lack rigor and lead to chaos.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

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