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About this quote

What does it mean?
Even beautiful scenery loses its charm after time, and desire for distant things shows that possession diminishes value.
In plain terms
Beauty fades with familiarity, and ownership lessens desire.
What can you take from it?
Seek novelty rather than clinging to possessions.

Where it applies

  • consumerism
  • travel

Putting it to work

  • minimalism
  • experiencing new environments

Questions to consider

  • Why does familiarity erode appreciation?
  • Can ownership ever enhance fulfillment?

Another view

Not all possessions lose value; some gain sentimental worth.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

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  2. A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions - as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.

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  3. Benefiting and hurting others are ways of exercising one's power upon others; that is all one desires in such cases. One hurts those whom one wants to feel one…

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