The Gay Science

“Ask never! Cease that whining, pray! / Take without asking, take away!” 

Nietzsche titles this brief verse, “The Man of Power Speaks.” It foreshadows Nietzsche’s conclusion about the type of empowered individual freed from the limits of morality and consciousness who follows their own needs for the sake of their happiness. Nietzsche proposes this egoism and drive for freedom produces the greatest intellectual insights towards experiencing self-fulfillment and joy. 

“Brethren, war’s the origin / Of happiness on earth: / Powder-smoke and battle-din / Witness friendship’s birth! / Friendship means three things, you know, – / Kinship in luckless plight, / Equality before the foe / Freedom – in death’s sight!”

Here, three-quarters of the way through the Prelude, Nietzsche reiterates his philosophical battle cry in support of freedom. This quote evidences Nietzsche’s belief in war, since nature produces individuals who seem to need victory. At play here is the egoism Nietzsche proposes is the foundation of social contracts. It’s less about friendship than preserving one’s own happiness and recognizing each individual’s journey for happiness. 

“I no longer know, my dear fellow-man and neighbor, if thou canst at all live to the disadvantage of the race, and therefore “unreasonably” and “badly”; that which could have injured the race perhaps died out many millenniums ago, and now belongs to the things which are no longer possible even to God. Indulge thy best or thy worst desires, and above all, go to wreck!”

In the opening pages of “Book First,” Nietzsche proposes the idea that survival is no longer the goal of the human race. Therefore, he suggests individuals follow their best or worst desires and needs in search of meaning and happiness. Nietzsche’s use of quotes around “unreasonably” and “badly” points towards his goal of undermining the idea that there is an absolute truth—what is unreasonable for one may not be for another. 

“It is still an entirely new problem just dawning on the human eye, and hardly yet plainly recognisable: to embody knowledge in ourselves and make it instinctive […] a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the fact that hitherto our errors alone have been embodied in us, and that all our consciousness is relative to errors!”

This quote, from an aphorism titled “Consciousness,” presents parts of Nietzsche’s thesis that only some individuals have realized the problem in a philosophy that pays major attention to the errors of humankind – to avarice and gluttony, for example–and ignores the positive, stronger, and more beautiful elements of human nature: egoism. Nietzsche proposes that a result of this type of thinking, handed down from survival-based thinking and through religions like Christianity and Buddhism, is outdated and has hurt humanity.

“We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our bad reputation.”

Here, Nietzsche proposes individual ethos exists within the context of a group consciousness and collective morality. This quote both points at what holds certain individuals back (a fear of others’ negative perceptions) and the starting point for where Nietzsche proposes great individuals diverge from convention and preexisting knowledge.Nietzsche wants to break thinkers free from the weight of their own conscience, which infuses this statement with irony, and even paradox, as on the following page, Nietzsche proposes “perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons,” (49) suggesting conscience both holds us back and drives us forward.

“Appearance is for me the operating and living thing itself; which goes so far in its self-mockery as to make me feel that here there is appearance, and Will o’ the Wisp, and spirit-dance, and nothing more […] that among these dreamers, I, also the ‘thinker,’ dance my dance, that the thinker is a means of prolonging further the terrestrial dance, and in so far is one of the masters of ceremony of existence.”

This quote presents the idea of the thinker as dreamer, of man as symbol. In poetic rhythm and language, it plays with the idea that all knowledge and life is artifice dreamed by an individual. The rest of this paragraph explores Nietzsche’s belief that all branches of knowledge are connected, and each individual consciousness contributes to and draws from a tree of collective knowledge. Here, Nietzsche eludes absolute meaning, reveling in the juxtaposition between poetic ideal and philosophic inquiry. In this way, Nietzsche demonstrates a joy of philosophy, illustrating the gay science.

“Your love of ‘reality,’ for example – oh, that is an old, primitive ‘love’! In every feeling, in every sense-impression, there is a portion of this old love […] some kind of fantasy, prejudice, irrationality, ignorance, fear, and whatever else has become mingled and woven into it. There is that mountain! There is that cloud! What is ‘real’ in them? Remove the phantasm and the whole human element […] If ye could forget your origin, your past, your preparatory schooling.”

In this opening verse of “Book Second,” labeled “To The Realists,” Nietzsche calls into question the reality of knowledge, indeed the very truth of reality itself. If humanity disappears, do mountains still exist, he wonders. These statements that seek to undermine the notion of an absolute truth abound throughout The Gay Science. This quote also foreshadows Nietzsche’s goal of proposing that human belief in God collapsed when Christian teachings no longer healed widespread suffering. Nietzsche believes these ideas evolve from conditions that are, for him, irrelevant. By the end of this verse, he declares there is no true reality.

“People could do everything with it: they could make labor go on magically; they could compel a God to appear, to be near at hand, and listen to them; they could arrange the future for themselves according to their will; they could unburden their own souls of any kind of excess (of anxiety, of mania, of sympathy, of revenge), and not only their own souls, but the souls of the most evil spirits […] without verse a person was nothing, by means of a verse a person became almost a God.”

This quote comes early in “Book Third,” after Nietzsche discusses how Athenians attended theater to hear poetically-phrased narratives. By “it,” Nietzsche means music and poetry, because art, through style creates the illusion that an individual wields complete control over the forces of creation. Nietzsche proposes this art heals and is reinvented by each new culture once the value of received knowledge depreciates. The quote points to Nietzsche’s theme of man as his own creator, as well as humankind as the creator of consciousness. 

“And was it actually political freedom that impelled the poet to sympathy with Brutus […] and made him the accomplice of Brutus? Or was political freedom merely a symbol for something inexpressible?”

Towards the end of “Book Second,” Nietzsche interrogates whether Shakespeare’s creation of Brutus represents a philosophical insight about freedom over tyranny (a freedom justified by murderous means). This discussion, titled “In Honour of Shakespeare,” comes after Nietzsche’s investigations of the origins of poetry and art, and his praise of Greek theater. Nietzsche proposes the conceit of artists is necessary and leads to philosophical insights. It’s important to note Nietzsche’s ideas reach back to ancient Greece and its impact on modern western culture. Shakespeare is a natural and iconic examplethereof. In subsequent pages, Nietzsche shifts his analysis towards analyzing major German thinkers, like Schopenhauer and composer Richard Wagner (who was Nietzsche’s friend), declaring a bourgeois jealousy of nobility exists in German music.

“And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate depth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us much so good as the fool’s cap and bells […] we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish and blessed Art, in order not to lose the free dominion over things which our ideal demands of us. It would be backsliding for us, with our susceptible integrity, to lapse entirely into morality […] And as long as you are still ashamed of yourselves in any way, you still do not belong to us!”

This call to action closes “Book Second.” It follows Nietzsche’s discussion of how the high language of the German court, as in ancient Greece, distinguishes the best German Romantic art. After dissecting what he believes is Schopenhauer’s incomplete philosophy, Nietzsche celebrates this folly for its philosophical integrity, and for the nobility of its seeking. This quote foreshadows the type of ideal individual Nietzsche’s philosophy is leading towards: one not fearful of selfish needs, nor weighed down by past conceptions. Nietzsche’s stark defense of individual freedom, in egoism, represents a major theme in The Gay Science.

“God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him.” 

Nietzsche’s most famous phrase appears one quarter of the way into “Book Third.” After spending the opening two sections of The Gay Science proposing that ideas of God evolved from the human to need to survive, Nietzsche declares these old religions have collapsed. In “Book Third,” Nietzsche goes on to analyze how the vulgarity of the Christian Church seeded its own demise, casting doubt onto its teachings and eroding its authority. Here, Nietzsche’s arguments and critique against received knowledge meet their conclusion, and this quote serves as a jumping-off point for Nietzsche’s explorations connecting ancient and modern understanding. This quote–as with The Gay Science at large–can be interpreted as a call to individual freedom, as well as a nod towards collective consciousness. God is dead because, together, people no longer feel the authority of God in their conscience. 

“The inventing of Gods, heroes, and supermen of all kinds, as well as coordinate men and undermen–dwarfs, fairies, centaurs, satyrs, demons, devils–was the inestimable preliminary to the justification of the selfishness and sovereignty of the individual: the freedom which was granted to one God in respect to other Gods, was at last given to the individual himself in respect to laws, customs and neighbors.” 

Here, Nietzsche sums up his thinking thus far in The Gay Science. This quote, from a verse titled “The Greatest Utility of Polytheism,” demonstrates Nietzsche’s proposal that mankind invented the gods out of need, and that the freedom of creation once provided only to gods now belongs to the individual. In the past, humankind invented gods to disguise one’s selfishness. Nietzsche proposes this disguise is no longer a disguise but rather a veil separating individuals from truth. 

Bisy Backsons are described as always moving, worrying, and pacing about. These people always have a destination or goal in mind, and their relentless pursuit of the goal not only exhausts Bisy Backsons, but their friends and associates as well.

Here, Nietzsche expands upon his declaration that God is dead. This quote comes from his investigation of why God is dead. For Nietzsche, this ‘death’ symbolized a great change in the morality of a civilization. Nietzsche proposes the Lutheran Reformation fails for the same reasons that the German people abandon faith in God: The Middle Ages produced a corrupt church. Important to note are Nietzsche’s comments on morality and collective consciousness as herdinstincts. Luther’s declarations fell short of inspiring a resurrection in God, according to Nietzsche. As a result, a great period of change in thinking, often ripe with moral decay, comes about until a new philosophy emerges. For Germany, that new philosophy finds forms in Schopenhauer’s belief in the will, and, later, in German Romanticism.

“Need is supposed to be the cause of things; but in truth it is often only the result of things.” 

Earlier, Nietzsche proposes far more chaos fills the universe than order and so perhaps the human propensity towards reason, logic, and order grows from a need, as opposed to a result of logic representing absolute truth. Therefore, logic is a result of chaos, and not the cause of order. One can apply this logic, as Nietzsche does, to religion. Nietzsche proposes humankind once had a need for belief in God when it was less experienced and less knowledgeable. Thousands of years later, the effect of religion becomes diluted. So, the need for new understanding is a result that grows from disenchantment with current beliefs. 

“Sum, ergo cogito: cogito ergo, sum.” 

In the opening verse of “Book Fourth,” Nietzsche inverts Descartes’ famous “I think therefore I am” phrase. Instead, Nietzsche says, I live therefore I think. This signals a reversal–an undermining–of long-championed philosophic discourse. It’s Nietzsche’s goal to critique all accepted notions of knowledge. Descartes’ phrase can be considered a foundation in western metaphysical philosophy. But Nietzsche wants to overturn this idea, suggesting that consciousness arises from life, not that consciousness first created life. This can interpreted as Nietzsche further applying his concept that God is dead to western thought. 

“For believe me […] the secret of realising the largest productivity and the greatest enjoyment of existence is to live in danger! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships into unexplored seas! Live at war with your equals and with yourselves! […] Knowledge will finally stretch out her hand for that which belongs to her […] she means to rule and possess, and you with her!”

Here, in ecstatic revelatory language, Nietzsche proposes part of his prescription for happiness, furthering the idea of philosophy as a healing art. Nietzsche believes in the power of myth as much as the power of those myths to transform individuals. In this verse, “Pioneers,” he champions the fearless; sentences earlier, he calls on brave pioneers who selfishly push boundaries, while attacking what he calls the slime of present day civilization and culture. 

“Had Prometheus first to fancy that he had stolen the light, and that he did penance for the theft […] in order finally to discover that he had created the light, in that he had longed for the light, and that not only man, but also God, had been the work of his hands and the clay in his hands? All mere creations of the creator?” 

Sentences before this quote, from a verse titled “Prelude to Science,” Nietzsche asks whether science would have been possible if not for the investigations and failures of alchemists, astrologers, and witches in medieval times, before scientific enlightenment. In rhetorical fashion, Nietzsche addresses the reader, suggesting humans invented myths such as punishment. Prometheus’s punishment of being eternally chained to a rock for stealing light from the Gods and giving it to humans is, at its ideological core, asserting that humans need punishment from a higher source in order to learn morality, an idea furthered by the Christian church. Nietzsche believes that society has moved past such a need. In doing so, the concept of a deity—any deity—is rendered obsolete. 

“And now my friend, do not talk to me about the categorical imperative! That word tickles my ear […] I recollect old Kant, who as punishment for having gained possession surreptitiously of the “thing in itself” […] was imposed upon by the categorical imperative […] and strayed back again to “God,” the “soul,” “freedom,” like a fox which strays back into its cage: and it had been his strength and shrewdness which had broken open this cage! […] [f]or it is selfishness in a person to regard his judgement as universal law, and a blind, paltry modest selfishness because it betrays that you have not yet […] created for yourself any personal, quite personal ideal.”

In this quote from the closing pages of “Book Fourth,” Nietzsche proposes that Kant’s strength and selfishness led him to believe in the categorical imperative. At lack of selfishness, and therefore a weakness, is wrapped up in the seriousness of morality, and thereby undermines the authority of Kant’s teaching. At play is the paradox between virtue and selfishness, which Nietzsche proposes is always part of the problem in discovering new truths and then convincing others of their value. This foreshadows Nietzsche’s interrogations into the problems of morality that occupy the closing pages of “Book Fourth.”

“Therefore must I descend into the deep, as thou doest in the evening, when thou goest beyond the sea and givest light also to the netherworld, thou most rich star! Like thee must I go down, as men say, to whom I shall descend. Bless me then, thou tranquil eye that canst behold even the greatest happiness without envy! Bless the cup that is about to overflow, that the water may flow golden out of it, and carry everywhere the reflection of thy bliss! Lo! This cup is again going to empty to itself and Zarathustra is again going to be a man […] Thus began Zarathustra’s going down.” 

This quote, which is mostly reported speech, closed the first edition of The Gay Science and introduces Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s symbol of the ideal human. One can interpret this closing verse to suggest that The Gay Science has been the work of Zarathustra, who, after evolving his philosophy for ten years in the mountains, descends like the sun each night; Zarathustra, too, will go down into the world of humankind and become a man and share his philosophy. 

“‘Either do away with your venerations, or […]with yourselves!’ The latter would be Nihilism […] but would not the former also be Nihilism? This is our note of interrogation.”

Here, Nietzsche echoes his declaration that God is dead. He proposes to forget praising the saints and to instead believe in oneself. Keeping in mind the first edition of The Gay Science was without this “Book Fifth,” it’s as though Nietzsche is responding to critiques that his philosophy leads one to nihilism, which verges on being at the opposite moral pole of virtue. While the tone is abrasive, there’s also hints of playfulness, joy, and self-discovery. 

“The sign-inventing man is at the same time the man who is always more acutely self-conscious; it is only as a social animal that man has learned to become conscious of himself […] he is doing so still, and doing so more and more […] As is obvious my idea is that consciousness does not properly belong to the individual existence of man, but rather to the social and gregarious nature in him.” 

This quote, from a verse titled “The Genius of the Species,” communicates Nietzsche’s belief that consciousness grew out of interactions between people, as opposed to being given by a higher power. In “Book Fifth,” Nietzsche traces the implications of his theories. The quote presents Nietzsche’s idea that man’s thought is a phenomenon andman’s actions are unique. He suggests the recluse would have—and that wild animals have—no use for human consciousness. Nietzsche proposes that individuals can act without consciousness, yet once they meet one another and need to communicate in some way, consciousness evolves. Things are translated into, and by, consciousness, and so all consciousness lacks pure authority. In this way, everything symbolized by consciousness decays into vulgarity. Therefore, each individual exists between this original world and that of artificial consciousness. Yet the paradox is this consciousness provides great understanding, joy, and direction. 

“What I fear, however, and what is at present obvious if we desire to perceive it, is that we modern men are quite on the same road already; and whenever a man begins to discover in what respect he plays a role, and to what extent he can be a stage-player, he becomes a stage player […] A new flora and fauna of men thereupon springs up, which cannot grow in more stable, more restricted eras.” 

This quote comes at the end of long interrogation into parallels between the ancient Greeks’ obsession with theater and the current strain of thought Nietzsche observes in Germany, Europe, and around the world, in which past beliefs in the theological are collapsing and giving way to social instability. Just before this quote, Nietzsche says through their perceptions of themselves as stage-players, the Greeks conquered the world. Nietzsche fears modern thinking expressed by those like Kant still reeks of that old fear of the gods. 

“It may on one hand proceed from gratitude and love […] art of this origin will always be an art of apotheosis, perhaps dithyrambic, as with Rubens, mocking divinely, as with Hafiz, or clear and kind-hearted, as with Goethe, and spreading a Homeric brightness and glory over everything […] It may also, however, be the tyrannical will of a sorely-suffering, struggling or tortured being, who would like to stamp his most personal, individual, and narrow characteristics, the very idiosyncrasy of his suffering, as an obligatory constraint on others; who, as it were, takes revenge on all things, in that he imprints his image, the image of his torture, upon them.” 

Here, Nietzsche proposes that Romanticism grows from two different types of individuals: those with surplus vitality and an incredible will, and need, for action; and those of reduced vitality, who are afflicted with great suffering. The first refers to Dionysian passion, Nietzsche says, while the latter is a feminine suffering which engenders art and new types of thinking to alleviate suffering. Nietzschepresents artists as matriarchal, in a way that certainly raised criticism against him.

Nietzsche’s contends that an individual embodied with both these characteristics—a raging Dionysian passion, mixed with a pregnant suffering—represents the ideal individual, someone capable of using their life as a fearless and selfish philosophical investigation into truth and happinessthat can be shared with others.