Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Nietzsche exclaims a great star, questioning its fate if it had not shone, implying that brilliance is tied to its impact.
In plain terms
He wonders what a great star would be without its light.
What can you take from it?
Greatness is defined by the influence it exerts.

Where it applies

  • artistic creation
  • scientific discovery

Putting it to work

  • recognize the value of contribution
  • avoid ego without effect

Questions to consider

  • What makes a talent valuable?
  • Can brilliance exist without recognition?

Another view

The poetic language is ambiguous and hard to apply practically.

More from Friedrich Nietzsche

  1. To this end we now need many preparatory courageous human beings who cannot very well leap out of nothing - any more than out of the sand and slime of present-…

    Permalink to quote #96
  2. Ihr habt den Weg vom Wurme zum Menschen gemacht, und Vieles ist in euch noch Wurm. Einst wart ihr Affen, und auch jetzt ist der Mensch mehr Affe, als irgend ei…

    Permalink to quote #98
  3. Preparatory human beings. - I welcome all signs that a more virile, warlike age is about to begin, which will restore honor to courage above all! For this age …

    Permalink to quote #95

Related quotes

  1. For greatness after all, in spite of its name, appears to be not so much a certain size as a certain quality in human lives. It may be present in lives whose r…

    Phillips BrooksPhillips Brooks quote #2
  2. A good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times; a dozen or two dozen times and…

    Randall JarrellRandall Jarrell quote #5
  3. I want to make a poem of my life.

    Yukio MishimaYukio Mishima quote #9