“Our progress in mechanical science during the last century has so far outpaced the development of our intellectual and moral faculties that we have suddenly lost ourselves. All those useful mechanical toys which man primarily invented for his own convenience have begun to tyrannize every moment of his life.”
— Roy Campbell
— Roy Campbell
“The individual is no longer rooted in society as a tree in a forest, rather he is comparable to the passenger in a rapidly moving vehicle whose name may be Titanic, but also Leviathan. As long as the weather holds and the outlook is pleasant, he will scarcely notice the curtailment of his freedom. He may even be filled with optimism and with the consciousness of power produced by the sense of speed. But all this changes when the fiery volcanic islands and icebergs emerge on the horizon. Then not only will technology claim a right to dominate fields other than the procurement of comfort, but at the same time the lack of freedom will become apparent-be it in the victory of elemental forces or in the fact that individuals who have remained strong acquire the means to exercise absolute power.”
— Ernst Jünger
— Ernst Jünger
“War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain.”
— Kipling
— Kipling
“In all the countries of Europe, and in America, too, there now is something that abuses this name: a very narrow, imprisoned, chained type of spirits who want just about the opposite of what accords with our intentions and instincts—not to speak of the fact that regarding the new philosophers who are coming up they must assuredly be closed windows and bolted doors. They belong, briefly and sadly, among the levelers—these falsely so–called ‘free spirits’—being eloquent and prolifically scribbling slaves of the democratic taste and its ‘modern ideas’; they are all human beings without solitude, without their own solitude, clumsy good fellows whom one should not deny either courage or respectable decency—only they are unfree and ridiculously superficial, above all in their basic inclination to find in the forms of the old society as it has existed so far just about the cause of all human misery and failure—which is a way of standing truth happily upon her head! What they would like to strive for with all their powers is the universal green–pasture happiness of the herd, with security, lack of danger, comfort, and an easier life for everyone; the two songs and doctrines which they repeat most often are ‘equality of rights’ and ‘sympathy for all that suffers’—and suffering itself they take for something that must be abolished.
We opposite men, having opened our eyes and conscience to the question where and how the plant ‘man’ has so far grown most vigorously to a height—we think that this has happened every time under the opposite conditions, that to this end the dangerousness of his situation must first grow to the point of enormity, his power of invention and simulation (his ‘spirit’) had to develop under prolonged pressure and constraint into refinement and audacity, his life–will had to be enhanced into an unconditional power– will. We think that hardness, forcefulness, slavery, danger in the alley and the heart, life in hiding, stoicism, the art of experiment and devilry of every kind, that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical in man, everything in him that is kin to beasts of prey and serpents, serves the enhancement of the species ‘man’ as much as its opposite does.”
― Nietzsche
We opposite men, having opened our eyes and conscience to the question where and how the plant ‘man’ has so far grown most vigorously to a height—we think that this has happened every time under the opposite conditions, that to this end the dangerousness of his situation must first grow to the point of enormity, his power of invention and simulation (his ‘spirit’) had to develop under prolonged pressure and constraint into refinement and audacity, his life–will had to be enhanced into an unconditional power– will. We think that hardness, forcefulness, slavery, danger in the alley and the heart, life in hiding, stoicism, the art of experiment and devilry of every kind, that everything evil, terrible, tyrannical in man, everything in him that is kin to beasts of prey and serpents, serves the enhancement of the species ‘man’ as much as its opposite does.”
― Nietzsche
Forwarded from GYM XIV
“I walk among these people and keep my eyes open; they have become smaller and are becoming ever smaller: but this is because of their teaching on happiness and virtue. So much kindness, so much weakness I see."
- Nietzsche
XIV 🏴☠️
- Nietzsche
XIV 🏴☠️
"It is not a lack of love but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages."
— Nitzsche
— Nitzsche