“ it is good to do nothing for which we are not strong enough ”
Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887). copy citation
| Author | Friedrich Nietzsche |
|---|---|
| Source | On the Genealogy of Morality |
| Topic | good |
| Date | 1887 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Horace B. Samuel |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Genealogy_of_Morals |
Context
“who goes out of the way of evil, and demands, in short, little from life; like ourselves the patient, the meek, the just,"—yet all this, in its cold and unprejudiced interpretation, means nothing more than "once for all, the weak are weak; it is good to do nothing for which we are not strong enough"; but this dismal state of affairs, this prudence of the lowest order, which even insects possess (which in a great danger are fain to sham death so as to avoid doing "too much") , has, thanks to the counterfeiting and self-deception of weakness, come to masquerade in the pomp of an ascetic, mute, and expectant virtue, just as though the very weakness of the weak—that is, forsooth, its being, its working, its whole unique inevitable inseparable reality—were a voluntary result, something wished, chosen, a deed, an act of merit.”
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