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Read Beyond Good and Evil in English, with German beside it
by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche · 1844–1900
"Beyond Good and Evil" by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is a philosophical work published in 1886. Nietzsche launches a fierce attack on traditional philosophy, accusing past thinkers of disguising moral prejudices as objective truth. He challenges fundamental concepts like good versus evil, knowledge, and free will, proposing instead his theory of "will to power." The book calls for new philosophers who will move beyond conventional morality to embrace a more dangerous, perspectival understanding of existence and create new values for the future.
Summary generated automatically by Project Gutenberg.
- Read time
- 285 min
- Words
- 62,655
- Chapters
- 16
- Paragraphs
- 371
- Price
- Free
- Ethics
- Philosophy, German
We Northerners undoubtedly derive our origin from barbarous races, even as regards our talents for religion--we have POOR talents for it.
Wir Nordländer haben gewiß unsere Herkunft von barbarischen Rassen, auch was unsere Talente für die Religion betrifft -- wir haben ARME Talente dafür.
One may make an exception in the case of the Celts, who have theretofore furnished also the best soil for Christian infection in the North:
Eine Ausnahme kann man nur für die Kelten machen, die bisher auch den besten Boden für die christliche Ansteckung im Norden geliefert haben: das christliche
the Christian ideal blossomed forth in France as much as ever the pale sun of the north would allow it.
Ideal ist in Frankreich so weit gediehen, wie es die bleiche Sonne des Nordens eben zuließ.
How strangely pious for our taste are still these later French skeptics, whenever there is any Celtic blood in their origin!
Wie fremdfromm sind uns doch noch diese späteren französischen Skeptiker, wenn nur ein Tropfen keltischen Blutes in ihrer Herkunft ist!
How Catholic, how un-German does Auguste Comte's Sociology seem to us, with the Roman logic of its instincts!
Wie katholisch, wie ungermanisch erscheint uns Auguste Comtes Soziologie mit der römischen Logik ihrer Instinkte!
How Jesuitical, that amiable and shrewd cicerone of Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, in spite of all his hostility to Jesuits!
Wie jesuitisch, dieser liebenswürdige und scharfsinnige Cicerone von Port Royal, Sainte-Beuve, trotz aller seiner Feindseligkeit gegen die Jesuiten!
And even Ernest Renan: how inaccessible to us Northerners does the language of such a Renan appear, in whom every instant the merest touch of religious thrill throws his refined voluptuous and comfortably couching soul off its balance!
Und selbst Ernest Renan: wie unzugänglich uns Nordländern erscheint die Sprache eines solchen Renan, in dem jeden Augenblick der geringste Anstoß des religiösen Schauders seine raffinierte, wollüstige und bequem lagende Seele aus dem Gleichgewicht bringt!
Let us repeat after him these fine sentences--and what wickedness and haughtiness is immediately aroused by way of answer in our probably less beautiful but harder souls, that is to say,
Wiederholen wir mit ihm diese schönen Sätze -- und welche Bosheit und Hochmut wird uns sogleich als Antwort entgegentreten in unseren vielleicht weniger schönen, aber härteren Seelen, das heißt,
in our more German souls!--"DISONS DONC HARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL,
in unseren germanischeren Seelen! -- "DISONS DONC HARDIMENT QUE LA RELIGION EST UN PRODUIT DE L'HOMME NORMAL,
QUE L'HOMME EST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS ASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE....
QUE L'HOMME EST LE PLUS DANS LE VRAI QUANT IL EST LE PLUS RELIGIEUX ET LE PLUS ASSURE D'UNE DESTINEE INFINIE....
C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE LA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES CHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET ABSURDE.
C'EST QUAND IL EST BON QU'IL VEUT QUE LA VIRTU CORRESPONDE A UN ORDER ETERNAL, C'EST QUAND IL CONTEMPLE LES CHOSES D'UNE MANIERE DESINTERESSEE QU'IL TROUVE LA MORT REVOLTANTE ET ABSURDE.
COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTS-LA, QUE L'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?"...
COMMENT NE PAS SUPPOSER QUE C'EST DANS CES MOMENTS-LA, QUE L'HOMME VOIT LE MIEUX?"...
These sentences are so extremely ANTIPODAL to my ears and habits of thought, that in my first impulse of rage on finding them,
Diese Sätze sind meinen Ohren und Denkgewohnheiten so extrem ANTIPODAL, daß ich bei meinem ersten Wutausbruch, als ich sie fand, in die Marginalien schrieb: "
I wrote on the margin, "LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR EXCELLENCE!"--until in my later rage I even took a fancy to them, these sentences with their truth absolutely inverted!
LA NIAISERIE RELIGIEUSE PAR EXCELLENCE!" -- bis ich in meinem späteren Zorn sie sogar zu schätzen lernte, diese Sätze mit ihrer absolut verkehrten Wahrheit!
It is so nice and such a distinction to have one's own antipodes!
Es ist so fein und eine solche Distinktion, seine eigenen Antipoden zu haben!
About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche1844–1900
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, poet, and writer whose works profoundly shaped modern thought.
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Book details
- Original language
- English
- Translation
- German, machine translation
- Source text
- Project Gutenberg #4363
- Licence
- Public domain worldwide
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