3 Nietzsche Quotes That Are Changing My View of The World
How an 1800s German philosopher transformed the way I want to live my life
Friedrich Nietzsche was an influential man during his time and afterward, and for good reason. I find his criticism of culture and the latest academic findings of his time to be insightful and helpful even in today’s day and age.
Recently I purchased a dual volume of The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals and quickly grew more curious about what he had to say about life. Here are three quotes that I found from him that have quickly transformed the way I view the world and aim to live my life:
“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
It took me several passes to even begin to understand this quote. It’s so simple, yet has so many deep implications for my life and understanding of myself and my context.
I have always aimed to live differently. It started with being homeschooled all the way through school. Doing things the traditional way was never really my path in life. As a result, people often look at me and view my unorthodox practices to be strange and wrong.
This quote reminds of me a simple truth — of course, people are confused, they don’t understand what you’re doing. But I shouldn’t take that judgment as a worthwhile criticism of my behavior. Some people won’t understand my values, my music, or my persuasion to live life a certain way. And that’s okay — because they’re not the ones I owe an explanation to.
“There are no facts, only interpretations.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
I do believe that somewhere out there, objective truth exists. However, as I so valiantly argued in a high school debate competition room years ago, we are incapable of flawed and biased human beings comprehending objective truth.
There are no facts — only our perceptions of them, surrounded by our confounding beliefs, experiences, and ulterior motives. It would be prideful and unrealistic of us to believe that there is an absolute truth that we in our small minds can comprehend.
The best we can do is to make the most accurate and helpful interpretations we can and let our aims to understand things factually perfectly fall by the wayside.
“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.”― Friedrich Nietzsche
I’ve been having a lot of conversations about marriage and relationships recently with my family. It’s both my major and something that I’m considering as a part of my near future. I recently came across a quote from The Gottman Institute that says that the number one component of any resilient marriage is “repair skills.”
This looks different for everyone, but ultimately that element of a resilient marriage comes down to the fact that you’re committed and are simultaneously going to figure things out when they come out because you’re in it together. I think that this is something we understand well in friendship.
I’ve been living with my best friend since eighth grade for the past two years, and we have plenty of disagreements — but our friendship ending has never been on the table.
We figure it out. We repair. We end the night on the couch sharing a blanket together watching our favorite show because we’re in it together.
Marriages aren’t all that different.
If you stay friends, you see that person as someone that you love and care about and are willing to figure things out with. On top of that, you’ve entered into the covenant of marriage and have vowed to stay together through it all. It’s not the love that’s missing, but your friendship with that person.
I hope you have found these quotes to be as insightful and helpful as I have. May you go about your day a little more inspired, a little more informed, and a little more prepared to live a big and beautiful life. Best of luck!
