Skip to content
quotesby

Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of 'world history,' but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened.

Friedrich Nietzsche#8

ExistentialismKnowledgeHumilityCosmologyCosmosIntellectTransience

About this quote

What does it mean?
Nietzsche uses a fable to illustrate the fleeting, insignificant nature of human intellect in the vast cosmos.
In plain terms
Human intellect is brief and trivial compared to the universe.
What can you take from it?
Recognize the humility of our knowledge.

Where it applies

  • philosophical contemplation
  • scientific reflection

Putting it to work

  • study cosmic scale
  • practice intellectual humility

Questions to consider

  • What gives human intellect meaning despite its brevity?
  • How does cosmic perspective affect daily life?

Another view

The metaphor may overlook human achievements' value.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

  1. I have somehow something like 'influence' ... In the Anti-Semitic Correspondence ... my name is mentioned in almost every issue. Zarathustra ... has charmed th…

    Permalink to quote #7
  2. The pride connected with knowing and sensing lies like a blinding fog over the eyes and senses of men, thus deceiving them concerning the value of existence. F…

    Permalink to quote #9
  3. You have committed one of the greatest stupidities - for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole w…

    Permalink to quote #6

Related quotes

  1. 'To try to write a grand cosmical drama leads necessarily to myth. To try to let knowledge substitute ignorance in increasingly larger regions of space and tim…

    Hannes AlfvenHannes Alfven quote #14
  2. We puzzle as to whether the universe is bounded or extends forever; whether, indeed, it may only be one universe among many. We speculate as to whether our uni…

    Vannevar BushVannevar Bush quote #50
  3. Que sais-je?

    Michel de MontaigneMichel de Montaigne quote #1