“ What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? ”
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (1895). copy citation
| Author | Friedrich Nietzsche |
|---|---|
| Source | The Antichrist |
| Topic | duty pleasure |
| Date | 1895 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Henry Louis Mencken |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Antichrist |
Context
“The theological instinct alone took it under protection!—An action prompted by the life-instinct proves that it is a right action by the amount of pleasure that goes with it: and yet that Nihilist, with his bowels of Christian dogmatism, regarded pleasure as an objection.... What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire, without pleasure—as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for décadence, and no less for idiocy.... Kant became an idiot.—And such a man was the contemporary of Goethe! This calamitous spinner of cobwebs passed for the German philosopher—still passes today!...”
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