“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but to *love* it.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.”
“What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you: ‘This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must come to you again, and all in the same series and sequence – and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and you with it, you speck of dust!’ – Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him : ‘You are a god, and never did I hear anything so divine!’ If that thought acquired power over you as you are, it would transform you, and perhaps crush you.”
When it comes to the “Nietzschean affirmation,” I think he is at his best. A similar theme appears in Rilke in places (the ninth elegy especially) — who was influenced by Nietzsche.
Curiously, for all of Nietzsche’s dislike of the Stoics, this is where he most resembles them (Pierre Hadot has pretty much gotten rid of the notion of Stoicism as a “philosophy of resignation”). It’s summed up in four simple Latin words in Seneca: “Habere eripitur, habuisse numquam” — “‘To Have’ is ripped away from us [by time and circumstance], (but) ‘To Have Had,’ never.”
Nietzsche was also enamored with Emerson (he had been to some of his lectures at one point). And you can see this kind of grand, all-encompassing embrace of Being in Whitman’s “Song of Myself” as well.
It’s also expressed beautifully in this poem by Holderlin (one of my favorites):
TO THE FATES
Grant me just one summer, powerful ones, And just one autumn for ripe songs, That my heart, filled with that sweet Music, may more willingly die within me.
The soul, denied its divine heritage in life, Won’t find rest down in Hades either. But if what is holy to me, the poem That rests in my heart, succeeds —
Then welcome, silent world of shadows! I’ll be content, even though it’s not my own lyre That leads me downwards. Once I’ll have Lived like the gods, and more isn’t necessary.
“My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but to *love* it.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
“If we affirm one single moment, we thus affirm not only ourselves but all existence. For nothing is self-sufficient, neither in us ourselves nor in things; and if our soul has trembled with happiness and sounded like a harp string just once, all eternity was needed to produce this one event—and in this single moment of affirmation all eternity was called good, redeemed, justified, and affirmed.”
“What if a demon crept after you into your loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to you: ‘This life, as you live it at present, and have lived it, you must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must come to you again, and all in the same series and sequence – and similarly this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and similarly this moment, and I myself. The eternal sand-glass of existence will ever be turned once more, and you with it, you speck of dust!’ – Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth, and curse the demon that so spoke? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment in which you would answer him : ‘You are a god, and never did I hear anything so divine!’ If that thought acquired power over you as you are, it would transform you, and perhaps crush you.”
When it comes to the “Nietzschean affirmation,” I think he is at his best. A similar theme appears in Rilke in places (the ninth elegy especially) — who was influenced by Nietzsche.
Curiously, for all of Nietzsche’s dislike of the Stoics, this is where he most resembles them (Pierre Hadot has pretty much gotten rid of the notion of Stoicism as a “philosophy of resignation”). It’s summed up in four simple Latin words in Seneca: “Habere eripitur, habuisse numquam” — “‘To Have’ is ripped away from us [by time and circumstance], (but) ‘To Have Had,’ never.”
Nietzsche was also enamored with Emerson (he had been to some of his lectures at one point). And you can see this kind of grand, all-encompassing embrace of Being in Whitman’s “Song of Myself” as well.
It’s also expressed beautifully in this poem by Holderlin (one of my favorites):
TO THE FATES
Grant me just one summer, powerful ones,
And just one autumn for ripe songs,
That my heart, filled with that sweet
Music, may more willingly die within me.
The soul, denied its divine heritage in life,
Won’t find rest down in Hades either.
But if what is holy to me, the poem
That rests in my heart, succeeds —
Then welcome, silent world of shadows!
I’ll be content, even though it’s not my own lyre
That leads me downwards. Once I’ll have
Lived like the gods, and more isn’t necessary.
~ Friedrich Hölderlin
….And Beethoven’s “Must it be? It must be!” in his final string quartet. <3